


Until One Remained

by Starshine_432



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Death, Complicated Original Characters, Don't worry there's actual plot, Electrocution, Eventual Happy Ending, Forced Dancing, Forced Skating, Isolation, Kidnapping, Knife Play, Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, None of the Yuri's are dying, OC, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other forms of torture, Plots, Psychological Torture, Psychopath!OC, Read at Your Own Risk, Sensory Deprivation, Serial Kidnappers, Story lines, Terrorism, Torture, Unplanned friendships, Waterboarding, kidnappings, other OC's - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14057673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starshine_432/pseuds/Starshine_432
Summary: “Viktor… H-he’s gone.“I-I don’t know what to do or where he is and his room is a mess and I know he doesn’t like cleaning but I’m worried…”Viktor couldn’t understand. Mila was babbling and sobbing over the phone in both Russian and English and Yuuri was still asleep on the bed. He didn’t want to disturb the peaceful serenity of his slumber.“Mila, calm down.” He said calmly, hoping she would do the same. The red haired skater heeded to his words, but only to an extent as she was still sobbing. “Now, tell me what happened. Who’s gone?”There was sniffing at the other end before he was answered.“Yuri… Yuri is missing and we don’t know where he is…”......When skaters are being reported missing, it sends the skating community into states of panic and increasing levels of paranoia. Everyone is stifled; especially when nothing of a trace is left behind for every week the skaters disappear…(I’ll be adding or removing tags as the story progresses)





	1. ‘Hello?’

PROLOGUE

_At the Moscow Police Department…_

“Chief…”

“Hmm?” The middle aged man hummed in response, his eyes peering up from the documents he had been signing for the allowance of a particular arrest to be placed. It had been a strangely grueling, if not tiring process, and the thought of having another thing to add to his worries that day gave his head an ache.

The look in his Inspectors eyes said his fears were inevitable however.

The blonde haired woman was hasty and brief as she sat to relay her reports to him.

“During our morning patrol around the parameters, I and my men came across a body.”

“A body?” He hadn’t said it with plenty enthusiasm or surprise, seeing as these were the kind of things he had faced for most of his life as a member of the force.

“Yes,” She nodded. “But not just any body Chief. It belongs to Julio Antoine, the snow boarder that was reported missing two years ago.”

His eyebrows rose at this. Now this was surprising. Antoine Julio, a professional snowboarder that had competed in the 2015 Winter Olympic half-piping tournament, along with several other snow boarders like him, had been missing for over two years.

Similar cases had occurred over the years as well, two famous speed skaters missing, some curlers reports found half-dead or already gone, skiers reported kidnapped and taken from their homes, and a few other cases he would have to look up again. Though, none of them was as big as the one which had occurred two years prior. Up to a dozen snow boarders went missing right before the Winter Olympic season, and without a trace.

The force had tried day and night, worked 24/7 to investigate the case and find at least a semblance of a lead. But whatever or whoever was responsible was good at covering their tracks; so good that they were unable to find them even after months of thorough investigation. Until now.

The Inspector continued after a short moment of silence. “The body found was almost half dead, but we were able to resuscitate him enough to make sure he survived.” The news was a relief; he being alive would be of great value. “He is currently at a local hospital, and we would be visiting him to ask him some questions in a week while he recuperates.” The blonde’s eyes seemed to widen like she had made a mistake. “…That is, if we are still reopening the case.”

His answer was straightforward and concise. “Of course we are reopening the case.” He pushed back a smile at seeing her eyes brighten at the news he knew she had been waiting to hear for a long while.

Getting this case solved and closed was going to be the main goal of his Inspector’s mind that he knew. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he knew how determined the blonde was, and if they could capture the criminals responsible, they would be able to put an end to the organization that has been plaguing the world of winter sports for years.

He just hoped that they would be able to do it in time before they struck again.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

 

Chapter 1: ‘Hello?’

** _Yuuri_ **

_Two weeks later…_

The day started with the bright morning sun streaming in through the open windows, spreading its glorious lights upon the couple that lay side by side on the bed, drinking in the comfort the sheer presence of the other brought them. Their dreams filled with incomprehensible bliss that could only be a result of having the other near and in love.

Yuuri, in short wanted to stay asleep some more. But his head refused to supply him with dreams, full or empty, and his body felt rested up enough that all he could do was lay down on the bed and stare at the ceiling, until the view of Makkachin’s head obscured his vision and he was forced to sit up by her ‘good morning’ licks.

“Okay, I’m up, I’m up…” He says, patting the poodle down and swinging his legs over the bed. Viktor was still asleep, and Makka made no move to wake him up. He was glad. The silver haired skater needed plenty of rest, and so did he, since after all they had trained on the rink for quite a long amount of hours the previous day. But Yuuri was done resting, and Viktor was not.

He looked to his phone to check the time as per the usual habit, but was immediately surprised at the notifications on the screen displaying the number of missed calls he received over the night.

5 missed calls

15 voice messages

Phichit

Yuuri’s head swam with confusion as to why his friend would have had to call him five times and leave him fifteen voice messages at 11:00PM in the night. He scrolled through caller history and saw the messages began at 7:01PM, stopping for two hours and resuming at around 10:49PM, which left him in another level of confusion because whatever he was calling Yuuri for must’ve been important. How come he hadn’t heard his phone ring while he was asleep?

Yuuri decided he didn’t want to deal with his confusion and tapped on the first message.

“ _Yuuri! It’s me, Phichit!!! Just thought I’d drop by in St. Petersburg for a while! Seung Gil’s here too! We just kinda ran into each other and— (Mumbling in the background). No, he totally won’t mind... Of course! I’m his best friend (More mumbling)… What? No way I— Oh. Okay Yuuri. See you tomorrow!_

The message was as harmless as Phichit was ever, and so was the next, with Phichit stating that he was going celebratory clubbing for his safe landing in Russia, and then ranted a whole two minutes of how Seung Gil was being a dishwasher and didn’t want to go with him.

The time skip happened from there, but Yuuri was sure it was just more Phichit having his way with St. Petersburg while ranting about irrelevantly funny things and the next thing he was going to post on Instagram. Nothing as urgent as he had thought it would be. So he decided on calling him next, but it immediately went to voicemail after two goes.

Yuuri was quick to assume his friend was probably drained from all the fun he’d been having the previous night and was most likely still dozing away on his bed. He thought about calling him later, but then his stomach grumbled as he did, and it was just then that he took notice of how hungry he was. He had gone immediately to bed after practicing at the rink the day prior, and hadn’t taken anything for dinner before going to sleep with just the half-digested sandwich he had taken as lunch.

Yuuri decided that breakfast was going to be the first thing he did before anything else, and then sent a text to Phichit to meet up with him at Schastye later in the day, proposing that he could bring Seung Gil as well.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Yuuri arrived at the café with Viktor after a while at the rink, the two deciding on using the short excursion as a little break before they would return to practice.

Viktor, as always was supportive with the idea, and they were off as soon as they had finished practicing the elements of Yuuri’s Program.

“Hey, Yuuri…” Viktor started as they strolled through the front doors of the popular café. “Are you sure we’re supposed to meet up here?”

“Yes I’m sure…” He replies absentmindedly, while looking for the familiar tanned brunette anywhere in sight. The place didn’t contain too many people enough for him not to notice his friend, and even if so, Phichit was good at making himself noticeable. He was albeit surprised that he hadn’t even called Yuuri’s attention to him yet.

Meanwhile, something seemed to have called for Viktor’s attention, because soon he was staring in surprise at something, or rather, someone. “Huh? What’s that?” He didn’t catch what Viktor had said at first, and only directed his vision to where Viktor was staring at.

Sitting in the back booth by the corner was a bespectacled dark haired man, who looked to be in his late forties, and was sipping on Mocha while reading a book. Now despite the ordinary nature the man seemed to emanate, Yuuri couldn’t help but peg him as someone familiar. Viktor seemed to have the same situation as well, but was handling it a lot differently than Yuuri’s staring and wondering.

He soon found himself being dragged in the very direction of said man, and he prayed to every force guiding him that the guy wasn’t going to be too pissed off at them for disturbing his afternoon.

“Hello!” Viktor says enthusiastically, waving at the man. The man in turn peered at him from his book, looking albeit confused but otherwise not entirely annoyed. “I’m famous Russian figure skater Viktor—“

“—Nikiforov.” The man completes his introduction, and then turns to Yuuri. “And you’re Yuuri Katsuki. Yes, I know you two.” He says and smiles in what looks like fond reminiscence. “You’re both competitive figure skaters in the skating community this season.”

There wasn’t really a surprise there, considering how far the popularity of the couple had spread as well as news of Viktor’s return to the ice. Yuuri watched in anticipation and mild affection as Viktor’s eyes lit up like that of an overwhelmed fan boy, and he cracked open his enthusiastic heart shaped smile. “Oh wow! It’s such an honor that you know of us!” His demeanor strangely resembled Minami’s, and the thought brought a smile to his face.

It seemed like Viktor finally remembered Yuuri, and turned to him still with that adorable smile plastered on his face. “Yuuri, why don’t you introduce yourself to Alex Winter? I’m sure he’d like to meet you.”

And like a chime, the name rang a bell in his head, and he could recall from somewhere around 17 years ago…

  
_“… And here comes the jump combination…Oh? He turned it into a double loop… then here comes the elements… Here he plans on doing triple toe loop…… Whoa! He changed it into a quadruple toe loop… followed by an impressive quad salchow!!! (The crowd erupts into cheers even as he finishes his routine) Looks like we’ve made history on the ice tonight people! Give it up for the man that defies gravity, Alex Winter!!!”_

_“Hey Yukko did you see that?!” Yuuri exclaimed bouncing around in surprised excitement. “He just landed a quadruple toe loop! That was amazing!” He spun, and landed flat on his behind still smiling._

_Yukko giggled at him, looking surprised and happy as well but toned down a notch than him. “So you’re not Viktor’s fan anymore now?”_

_“Huh?” He looked confused at her question, but then huffed as it clicked in his mind on what she was implying. “I am too still his fan. In fact, I’m his number one fan!” He hollers, but not angrily. He could never be angry at Yukko. “But it’s still so cool that he landed that jump! I hope I land something like that too!”_

  
Alex Winter. “You’re Alex Winter.” He finally says after a moment of astonished silence. “You landed the fifth quadruple toe loop in history!” Viktor was staring at him with that ‘now-you’re-noticing?’ face, while Alex only smiled, and he could forget for an instance that he had seen the man flinch when he mentioned the toe loop.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He says inattentively, and then immediately looks at his phone like he was reading a text. If Phichit was there, he would have had them all take a selfie, just because.

Then suddenly he remembers why they were at the café in the first place.

He’s soon back to checking for Phichit, but then Alex moves to stand up from his chair and he’s saying something about being late for some meeting, and Viktor is saying bye and giving him his number so they could ‘keep in touch’, but that’s all he’s able to snag out of the short ordeal as his second search for his friend goes in vain.

“Do not worry moya lyubov, maybe he didn’t get the text.” Viktor says as they leave the café to go back home, Alex is gone and nowhere in sight and Yuuri just wants to go back to the apartment and lay down forever. But then he remembers he has practice and instead has to go back after a while. Maybe he would be calling Phichit after all.

But five missed calls later and counting, Yuuri is starting to lose his patience and state of peace. It’s three in the afternoon and Phichit still hadn’t picked up his phone or replied to any of the missed calls he’d been leaving. You’d think with the amount of missed calls and voice messages he was left last night; the brunette Thai would’ve been picking up his phone at the first ring. Viktor takes Makkachin out for a walk after a while of waiting for Yuuri to stop fretting, which has still not happened.

But Yuuri is also worried, because its twenty minutes later and ten calls redirecting to voicemail and Yuuri is tired of hearing: ‘Sorry! I’m not around right now; please leave a message after the beep! Beeeeeep!’ fifteen times over the line.

He wonders for a moment whether he’s fretting for nothing and his friend is fine and his phone is turned off, or his battery’s dead or it got stolen or something similar. But then he quickly changes his mind, knowing as his best friend, that he wouldn’t even let anything of the sort ever happen. And even if the latter did happen, and he got mugged, Phichit always somehow had a backup lying around somewhere with all the information from the previous phone backed up in the cloud. He experienced this first hand from their time in Detroit, and his respect for him had doubled by a huge amount.

So there wasn’t any other reasonable explanation except for the fact that not anything good had happened.

But he simply refused to believe it. Maybe there was something he could do about his friend’s absence. But heading to wherever he was staying was out of the picture since he wasn’t given the address or location of where he was shortly residing. So Yuuri went for the next best thing.

He scrolled through his contacts, searching for the number he had gotten from Phichit one time they were discussing about the Thai’s infatuations with his new friend. He remembers that day clearly, the two were skyping over the net, and Phichit was in bed with his three hamsters stacked up on top of his head while he talked admirably about every flaw and perfections of the person. Yuuri told him he supported whatever direction he chose to take with the forming relationship, and Phichit only gushed some more. The video call had ended when one of the hamsters fell and hit the end call button by accident.

Yuuri sighed when he finally reached the name and he tapped on it, chanting ‘pleasepickup pleasepickup pleasepickup’ like a mantra.

He was surprised when he had picked it up on the first ring, and he thanked his lucky stars that he did before speaking. “Hey, Seung-Gil? I need your help…”

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Yuuri theorized that his friend was missing.

After the call with Seung-Gil, he found out that he and Phichit were actually staying in the same hotel (And no they weren’t in the same room). The Thai skater had wanted to go clubbing, but Seung-Gil said no despite how awfully cute he looked while pleading with him and he ended up going alone.

He hadn’t seen him since then.

Even when he had gone to see him in his suite for reasons the Korean boy refused reveal, and found out he wasn’t in there when he’d entered (He had the extra key). And it turns out Yuuri hadn’t been the only one trying his line that day, and getting no feedback or replies. He could tell the younger skater was concerned, though he was nowhere near as expressive as Yuuri.

“Okay, thank you…” And with that the call was cut, and various disturbing thoughts were left to roam his head.

What was happening? Where was Phichit?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here’s he first chap! Hope you enjoyed because more is coming…
> 
> I don’t have the heart to put in actual famous figure skaters in here because (Spoiler alert!) Bad things are gonna happen. So there are gonna be tons of OC’s (And by that I mean like, five or six?). Anyway, thanks for reading! And don’t forget to leave a comment and kudos.
> 
> And if you actually know the fifth figure skater to perform the quad salchow since the beginning of modern figure skating you’re welcome to mention it in the comments!


	2. ‘Wh-who are you?’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri finds out that his best friend went missing and is super worried.

Chapter 2: ‘Wh-who are you?’

  
**_Phichit_ **

  
The lights at the club flickered on and off and around in varying blinding lights, loud music buzzed and echoed in between the walls of the building, the people taking the dance floor moving to the senseless upbeat rhythms while the few took seats at bar tables and couches at the VIP area.

It was a fairly okay setting for him, though it would have been better if he had the emo Korean boy there.

He paid for his drink, a glass of Vodka to start the night. The rest was a blur as it was just him having his way with the night, dancing and drinking and flirting. There were some points in time where he left Yuuri a message or five on how much fun he was having. He didn’t know how long he was there; he didn’t know how many shots he had taken. Only that he was having fun.

The night was his friend, and at the moment he was having a blast, despite the fact that he couldn’t shake off the feeling of someone watching him throughout the night. It wasn’t an abnormal feeling. Everyone here was watching him, trying to get a shot with the cute Thai boy, both males and females alike; so he blamed his paranoia on the amount of shots he had taken. He was gonna stop taking some for a while.

 

Phichit knew he wasn’t a light weight. He could take a lot of shots without getting wasted, but his body had a limit, and he knew it was a bad idea to get too drunk, especially on his first stay in St. Petersburg. And what if Yuuri decided to call him and he was too busy dealing with a hangover at 7:00AM in the morning?

So he took an early leave, deciding that he was tired of dancing and flirting with strangers and took a walk to the hotel.

The place wasn’t that far, so he didn’t think it necessary to hail a cab. And if he used the GPS on his phone, he would find the shortest routes to take. He didn’t plan on freezing out in the cold Russian night.

Phichit had taken out his phone a while earlier so he could text, deciding on texting Seung-Gil first with a: _Had so much fun XD. Wish you were there would’ve been nicer._ And then he switched over to Yuuri.

_‘Hey Yuuri! The club was awesome, had some fun : ) !!!’_

He looked at the texts again while he was walking, then decided on adding one more smiley face then added a tango dancer and wine cup emoji at the end before he sent it. Yuuri was probably sleeping by then, seeing as it was a few hours till midnight, but so was every other normal person that wasn’t Phichit.

A chill that didn’t come from the cold of the night shook his spine, and he had that feeling again. Someone was watching him. But when he turned and looked behind him he didn’t find anyone suspicious other than a cat which had just ran into an alley. _Calm down Phichit, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack_. He berated himself, then continued walking. Though the feeling of eyes never left him.

_“You ever had that weird feeling of someone watching you? Crazy right?”_

He sent the voice message to Yuuri, breathing in, then out, trying to clear his whirring head and beating heart in hopes that his paranoia would go away. But he could swear he could hear footsteps behind him, light like that of a man trying to sneak up on his prey, careful and planned, but hasty and accurate. Once more, Phichit turned around, and like before, nothing was there. _I must be going crazy_. He picked up his pace anyway, walking quickly through the short route to the hotel. A second pair of feet echoed behind him now, and this time he was sure he wasn’t imagining it.

Phichit knew the route he was going through, his hotel was only going to be a few meters away now, maybe if he ran…

A grab at the collar of his jacket from behind halted the thought of running to the safety of his hotel, and Phichit had no sooner found himself being held against the chest of another man. He had covered his mouth so he wouldn’t scream of course, and no matter how hard he tried to struggle, the grip on him was too strong.

_What’s going on? Why is this happening?_

His struggles went in vain though as he only ended up exhausting his energy, gloved hands clawing uselessly against the arm gripping him.

A sharp prick to the side of his neck sent the last vestiges of his energy down the drain, and the feeling of unconsciousness overcame him quickly. First lethargy, then the darkness blurring his vision till all he could think of was how he wanted to sleep.

Then darkness.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
When one wakes up in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar setting, bound and mystified, the first thing that came to mind was confusion, uncertainty.

When one wakes up to total darkness… well, let’s just say the differences in the reactions are barely even slightly apart.

The first thing that Phichit sees when he wakes up is… of course, total darkness. Not even an inch of light protruding from anywhere beside, above or below. Only dark, empty silence and blackness, almost convincing himself that he had somehow turned blind. He hoped he hadn’t.

“Hello?” He called out to the darkness, panicking, hoping that at least something would reply to him, but he was only met by his words with silence, he could feel that wherever he was left in was relatively small, probably. Probably had a lot of tiny creatures and rodents running around it too. The thought caused him to shudder.

“Where am I?” He said, getting up from where he had been laying on what felt like hard, smoothened concrete. His clothes didn’t feel like his own as he remembered he never put on a t-shirt or a pair of joggers to go out… where did he even go last night?

He felt something brush by his fingers as he sat propped up against a wall and on reflex, he pulled back, the sound of a rattling chain following after. Was that from him? He moved his hand around and saw (or felt rather) that yes, he had indeed been chained, but he supposed it was only his left wrist because none of his other limbs felt encased in something. He wondered why he hadn’t felt it before.

He pulled on it, and like he theorized, it was stuck to the wall behind him, which hardly helped matters now.

Something again brushed by him, something that felt like his hamsters but much bigger crawled over his legs, and he reflexively squeaked, bringing his legs closer to him and hugging them.

Not being able to see anything sucked.

He called out to the darkness once more. “Hello? Can… Is anyone…” It took him a while to calm his jumbling speech. “Where am I?” He was met by silence again. “Who brought me here?” He didn’t know why he thought his kidnapper would be listening but it was worth a shot to try anyway. Phichit could feel his heart rate slow down, his breathing exercises were working; besides, it was what Ciao Ciao always told Yuuri when he was having anxiety attacks before competition, there was no doubt they worked here as well, even if he wasn’t about to ice skate or compete.

He wondered if he was ever going to, now that he was being held captive by some stranger.

He wondered whether he would see his friends again too, he wondered about his family, about his hamsters, figure skating… How was he supposed to achieve his dreams when he was locked up here? He hoped he got out soon, but...

What if he never got out?

The thought caused a new wave of fear to overcome him, and his eyes stung up with oncoming tears at the notion that he might not even get out of there at all.

He let them fall, and he embraced the indications of them. His fears, his worries, his apprehensions. He had just been forcefully ripped from his life for unknown reason, chained to a pitch black room with no one but rodents as company. He deserved to cry even if just for a little. Heaven only knew if he was taken by someone deranged or obsessed, the thought of any of his fans or followers being a little bit mentally unstable caused him to shudder involuntarily.

He almost hopes it was a fan. Maybe he could try and negotiate his release no matter the other’s state of mind. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be stuck there.

In the worst case scenario it could be a murderer…

He shook his head. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to let his thoughts travel down that road.

Phichit half-heartedly dried his tears, and decided on dwelling on other things, things that he preferred to think about. He didn’t feel like crying more than he already had, seeing as how he needed to stay hydrated for as long as he was staying without water. So he instead let’s his thoughts redirect to his hamsters back at home, he wondered what they were up to. He hasn’t seen them in a while ever since leaving for Detroit after the current skating season and he misses having the little fluff balls of cuteness scrambling around him whenever, and him posting videos of them on their Instagram page.

Phichit smiles at the reminiscence, and it wasn’t long till he felt himself drifting to sleep after several hours of silent loneliness.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

 

Phichit is startled awake, the telltale sound of a metal door creaking open from dry friction is familiar and the bright lights emanating from the other side of the door blinds him momentarily. Despite that however, he notices the tall dark figure that passes through. It’s carrying a tray of some kind, and the probability of it being food and water was very high.

Now Phichit didn’t know how long he was asleep. Or how long he was passed out before then, but his stomach grumbled at the thought of food, and he was for once glad that he wasn’t going to be starved during his stay.

He didn’t care that the tall dark figure was rather intimidating and quiet, not saying a word, or that he had dropped the tray a good distance away from him, only standing and observing his prisoner while Phichit himself was trying to figure out if he was going to eat, or get tortured with the promise of food only for it not to be fulfilled.

He was only able to sit while he waited, propped up against the wall with his knees pulled up to his chest like a frightened animal as he observed the man figure in front of him. He could tell it was a male because the light still emanating from the door gave off that elusion, but the only thing he could make of his face were the small spectacles positioned in front of light golden eyes, but the rest of him was coated in a shade of literal darkness and mystery. It felt like hours had passed before Phichit finally spoke first.

“Wh-who are you?” His voice was small and a tad bit scratchy, but he hadn’t been given water for who knows how long, so it could be justified. The man didn’t answer him, and only squatted down to his eye-level and reached with a gloved hand to run a finger down the side of his face to his chin, where it was grabbed and turned side to side as he was observed like a piece of meat for sale.

Phichit remained still and tried to breathe evenly throughout, even when he noticed something of a smirk stretch the man’s lips—admittedly frightening at most—before he stood up, kicked the tray—which _did_ have food on it—closer to him, and then proceed to walk out the door.

And he was left in total darkness again.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Yuuri** _

  
Yuuri had dropped by at the police station right after him and Viktor’s morning jog. It had factually been a whole 24hrs since his friends disappearing, and he was sure that time was more than enough for a person to be declared missing. He had contacted Phichit’s family first things first, seeing as it would be much better hearing it from a close friend than from a news reporter, and they replied with the expected worry and concern that came with that sort of news. Condolences were sent, prayers were made.

Now it was time to send the message to the authorities.

 

“Yuuri…” He heard Viktor’s sigh from the short distance across the ice as he flubbed his jump for the sixth time that day. The rink was cleared except for a few skaters who were already leaving, which left him and his coach/competitor alone.

The sky was bright with a tinge of pink and orange, indicating the promise of a sunset as the skaters rounded up for the day. Excluding himself and Viktor however, because Yuuri still needed to work on his program, still needed to perfect all the elements, including jump compositions because he wasn’t just nailing them today, and for good reason too.

The police had said and assured him that they would begin the search for his friend, and he couldn’t help but be anxious about the whole situation. What if they never found him? Or they did find him but lying dead in an alley?

His fiancé seemed to understand that as well. “How about we call it a day hmm?” he says as Yuuri skates to the entrance and starts putting on his guards. “It is obvious you can’t concentrate on landing your jumps today.”

“Then I’ll try tomorrow.” He says determined, and Viktor nodded at that but continued talking.

“Whatever you want _moya lyubov_ , but I cannot have you hurting yourself on the ice. Let’s go out for some dinner.” He offered, but Yuuri was almost reluctant to agree, secretly hoping for some sleep after a tiring day on the ice. But then he knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep anytime soon, especially not with news, or lack thereof, concerning his friend. So a distraction was most likely the best option, even if it was just for a little while.

“Yeah, okay.” He finally replies. “Let’s go out.”

The restaurant they picked wasn’t any fancy, but it was friendly with a welcoming ambience and the service was kindly, enough to offer them complementary wine as they took their seats beside a large window facing the outside while they waited for their orders to be taken. There was a TV at the wall adjacent to the entrance, and a soccer match played as a few interested viewers watched.

“…So Yuuri what do you think?” Viktor asked, sipping on the last vestiges of his wine while Yuuri’s was still full. The two had been talking about Yuuri’s Short Program, which was still unfortunately a work in progress. The Cup of China was only two months and a week away, and Yuuri had expected that he would at least have been through with the choreography by the time. But Viktor this season wasn’t just his coach, he wasn’t just going to stay on the sidelines drilling and prepping Yuuri on his skating elements, he was his competitor as well; and even though the two had promised each other they would make it work, it still wasn’t an easy task to take.

Just thinking about the hardships brought him a headache, and he took a sip from his glass.

“I’m not sure… how about I just leave all my combinations in the second half and start with the quads?”

“At the beginning of your program? I don’t think it’s very logical.” Viktor analyzed. “If we do that then I might have to reduce your quads or just change most of them to triples…” Yuuri knew that already. Even though he was already good at landing almost all the quads written in the book, with the way he was getting distracted, him missing his jumps in practice would increase the risk of an on ice injury. And it may not be just a bloody nose this time.

The waiter who came to finally attend to them took their orders, and Yuuri had to ignore the way he looked at Viktor while he wrote down their food options.

“Is that all?” The red haired waiter asked, a polite but shy smile on his face as he waited patiently to be excused. If Yuuri was reading into it completely, he could almost say it looked forced. He being a skater and being with Viktor for a good portion of over a year enabled him the ability to differentiate between faked expressions and plastic ones. This one clearly resembled the former.

Yuuri didn’t know how long he had been staring at the waiter until he had walked away and Viktor was calling for his attention.

“Yuuri are you okay?” He asked concerned. “You were glaring holes into that waiter, I was even surprised he didn’t notice.” It was either that, or he knew what he was doing and decided to ignore Yuuri’s unobvious optical warnings. Or maybe he was just reading too much into it and he really needed a break.

He was trying. He really was.

His mind was grasping onto every little source of distraction that it could, maybe it would redirect his thoughts to something other than his friend’s mysterious disappearance. Maybe he could stop his knotted stomach that kept on saying everything and anything involving the case was wrong.

Talking about skating with Viktor helped, but for a little while. There were small moments in between where he thought of if the two were going to make it to the GPF again, if he was going to ever accomplish his dreams. Those dreams the Thai had only shared with himself, but then they had gone as quickly as they came and he was back to his own reality, remembering that ignoring his fiancé/best friend was rude and he should really listen while he spoke.

And then came the innocent waiter that was obviously Viktor’s fan and all he could do was immediately hate on him.

He was really a mess today.

Yuuri had reassured Viktor that he was fine and just tired, and even though he could tell that the older man didn’t believe him, they both went straight home right after, Yuuri going to hit the showers while Viktor waited and watched a running program he ended up falling asleep to on the couch.

Yuuri had thought of waking him up to go to bed, but the silver haired man looked so peaceful in his slumber that he ended up lying beside him. The couch was big enough for them to cuddle, and the warmth he was emanating sent waves of comfort through him that surprisingly, he was able to fall asleep.

A comfort, even amidst all his worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, I have no idea how to end a chapter. (I was watching a Friends episode while writing this that involved gay boyfriends and Joey getting involved with Russians) I dunno why but I felt like mentioning this… 
> 
> Any who, I think I did a good job with this chapter even if I don’t know the first thing about figure skating, neither have I ever touched an ice rink so… And I am so very sorry for what Phichit is going to go through (Because this chapter hasn’t even scratched the surface).
> 
> Lots of love to my one commenter: Hanairoh! and also all others that had given me Kudos! Stay tuned for more! The suffering gets worse…


	3. ‘An… ice rink?’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had been kept in here for far too long to think of hope of escape or rescue. Even if they were rescuing him, it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. He feared he would’ve broken by then, or maybe he already was… Yuuri would be so disappointed, Seung-Gil too…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a horrible person...

Chapter 3: ‘An… ice rink?’

  
_**Yuuri** _

 

It had been a week.

And still there wasn’t any news.

He tried to look at the bright side of things, the fact that he hadn’t gotten anything left the possibility that Phichit wasn’t anywhere lying lifeless in an alley or dead in a ditch. But he also knew that no news was bad news, coupled with the fact that nothing could be found regarding him. Not a trace, not a clue.

“The hell’s wrong with you Katsudon?!” He heard Yuri yell as Yuuri almost skidded over to where the younger was about to initiate a salchow. The two had almost tumbled down together on the ice, but Yuri was able to duck in time, leaving Yuuri to flub his jump and land head first on the ice with a resounding _smack_.

His mind, as troubled as it was, wasn’t as distracted as it had previously been, so landing his jumps wasn’t supposed to be a difficulty on the rink, especially not today.

What had ruined his jump was a sudden ache that had spiked up his leg as he was about to begin a triple toe loop. The thing had started at his knee, affecting his stance and balance, and remained there as a dull ache even as he was now attempting to get up but with much effort.

“Yuuri!” He heard Viktor skate up to him, and he attempted again to stand up, but the throb in his left knee made it near to impossible. “Are you okay Yuuri?”

Yuuri wanted to shake his head no, but the motion sent waves of nausea and vertigo through his head, so all he could do was let out a pained sign of discomfort which he was sure Viktor took as a negative.

“Oi, what’s wrong with the piggy?” Yuri asked in that typical annoyed tone that still somehow held a hint of concern, skating closer but still keeping his distance.

“I’m checking.” The silver-haired skater replied, and shifted his attention back to Yuuri quickly. “Yuuri…” Yuuri looked up at him, but his vision was bleary. He knew he didn’t need his glasses to look at something up close, so he shoved the theory that his astigmatism was the problem, and blinked a few times. However there were now two Viktors in front of him, and he was tilting…. In fact, the whole rink was tilting…

He uttered a wounded groan as his head pounded; only punctuated by the increasing aches in his knee which he held on to. Tears clouded his vision, and everything, including lights and sounds and movements became blurry.

However, he could feel and hear Viktor’s panic, he could hear Yurio swear—he couldn’t tell whether it was in Russian or not—as he called out to whoever was nearby. Other skaters were coming to surround him, blocking the lights and the sounds and the air; the feeling of sleep overtaking him at the moment felt promising, and he would have given into that sleep too, if not for the hard taps he felt against his cheek.

“Yuuri, you have to stay awake. Mila is calling the ambulance; everything is going to be fine.” That was Viktor’s voice, distinguishable among the many worried murmurs that surrounded him and still a light in the overwhelming darkness. Yuri was yelling at everyone to back away and give him some space while Viktor cradled Yuuri to his chest, telling him to stay awake.

Yuuri stayed awake or at least tried to, hanging on to Viktor’s voice as he spoke. He wasn’t very sure on what he was talking about; only that he was speaking, which was enough to keep him awake at the very least. He felt something pushing against his lips some minutes later, and he soon recognized it as a cup containing water as the cool liquid touched his upper lip. “Drink up Yuuri.” Viktor urged, and he took careful slow sips, the water refreshing and relieving as he attempted sitting up, only to feel a spike of pain in his knee and remember why he was on the floor of the rink cuddling against his coach.

He wanted to try to remember any strenuous activity he might have done any day before that might have brought on the sudden throbs he was currently experiencing. But nothing had come to mind. The only thing he could actually think of was the jumps he had missed during the week which had resulted in various parts and sides of his body crashing to the ice.

But he had experienced falls and mistakes before, and none of them had brought about whatever he was feeling at the moment, so it couldn’t have been those could it?

He didn’t know, and he was sure nobody else knew or would know except they went to the hospital to check out whatever was bothering his body.

Viktor’s touch still remained with him as he was put on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance. His fingers intertwined with his as he sat on a chair with the other paramedics with Yuuri still lying down and trying to stay awake while they rode off to the hospital.

Viktor kept Yuuri’s attention on him as he talked, told stories, sang songs, and when his eyes felt heavy and his person lightheaded, there was a strong and steady tap on his cheek keeping his eyes open and his consciousness intact.

That’s how the ride was until reaching the hospital.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Phichit** _

  
Phichit didn’t know how long it had been since he had been kept here, only that it had been _long_.

After that first time, the man with the golden-brown eyes and frightening smile never came back. After that time, he never saw the light again. When the door would open, the other side wouldn’t protrude light; so whenever someone came in, he didn’t know who.

It was a frightening prospect to live with, a terrifying enigma; especially when the faceless unnamed figures would touch his face, card their fingers through his hair, whisper sweet, safe-sounding things into his ear, their breath hot against his skin but somehow managing to give him goosebumps. Sometimes it was a man, and there was one time it was a woman, sometimes the figure never said anything, only remaining silent and breathing while they dropped trays of food and brought him water after long hours of dehydration.

He no sooner began to turn paranoid and fearful of every little sound, even his own breathing, sometimes believing it wasn’t his own and hallucinating figures watching him in the room. Some of them had red eyes, glowing in the dark. He had seen them once, and had tried to calm himself down by singing familiar songs that he knew, but after that he was still seeing things. He wanted to walk around, give himself some sense of feeling, to keep himself occupied if not for only a bit, but he couldn’t even do _that_. The only comfort he had felt was when they came in to feed him.

The food itself was another form of torture. Occasionally they would drop the tray where he could not reach it, leaving him to grasp at the pitch black surroundings on the floor till he felt something resembling a bowl or a plate. There was one time he had grabbed the tail of a rat and accidentally spilled his food on the floor. He hadn’t eaten that day. However, though he was given food (even in the worst of ways), the grimy contents always, _always_ left him feeling sick or nauseous.

At times, he fell asleep minutes after eating, having senseless dreams of hands grabbing at him and dragging him into the inescapable darkness, and then he would wake up into that same darkness, wishing with everything that he was that it was all a nightmare and hoping that one day he would wake up to the comfort of his bed and the relief of sunlight and human contact that he could see and not be frightened of.

For every minute that he spent there, he could feel his body and resolve become fainter. His brain losing touch with his ability to feel. Numbness. The hands and unwanted touches and whispers that he would flinch from became welcomed, reaching for any sort of comfort in this dark, silent torment that he was put in. He stopped asking questions. They never answered him anyway; never told him where he was, or why he was there, or who those people were. They never let him out of the room, not even to pee or move around to make sure his muscles weren’t weak—but maybe that was the point; to let him get weaker and weaker till he wasn’t even strong enough to lift himself up.

And he felt dreadful to say it was working.

He had been kept in here for far too long to think of hope of escape or rescue. Even if they were rescuing him, it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. He feared he would’ve broken by then, or maybe he already was… Yuuri would be so disappointed, Seung-Gil too…

Unwelcomed tears flowed from his eyes for the millionth time as he lay on the cold, hard concrete, flowing across the bridge of his nose and directly to the floor and ignoring that he was wasting his bodily fluids on tears that weren’t doing anything to save him.

He really was hopeless.

He really just wanted to go home, back to his hamsters; back to his siblings… he missed his dad and mom. He could use one of his mother’s hugs at the moment… he misses those. He misses everything before now, the ice, his friends, Coach Celestino, his social media. Even the little things he hadn’t appreciated before, like the cold wind, the blazing sun during the Summer heat, the rain, the birds, grass, the sky, colors… was he going to remember how colors looked like after this? The only color he saw last was the golden-brown eyes of that man… before the darkness.

One of his worst fears was that would be the only thing he saw before he died there.

A rodent scurried past his hand, but he didn’t flinch. He learnt to ignore them, just like he’d learnt to take every comfort that was handed to him in any form.

The creak of the door opening came right after, as it always did during his stay. He had been counting how many times the door opened, and it was up to 12 times now. This would make it the thirteenth.

With his ear already pressed against the floor, he could make out footsteps belonging to the flattened heels of a pair of worker boots. He assumed they were here to give him his food, and with the little amount of energy he had left, he slowly lifted himself from the floor and shifted his position so that his back was against the wall. It was a procedure that he had repeated every time someone came in; otherwise he wouldn’t be fed or touched. And he didn’t want that. He needed the food no matter how weak or sick it made him, and he needed the touches no matter how wrong it felt.

The chain, that he felt didn’t weigh a thing before, felt heavy now as he propped himself up. He wondered how they were able to see when he couldn’t, but he never really dwelt much on it. He sat patient as he awaited the indicative sound of a tray dropping onto the floor, but was a tad bit surprised when he didn’t hear such. Only the sound footsteps coming closer and closer, till he felt body heat emanate from the figure as the two were close enough.

Phichit’s wrists had become thinner, but he could feel the relief and bouts of surprise and confusion that came as the manacle released its hold on him.

Phichit would’ve run, run and run and run till he was out into the world and saw the colors, the clouds, his friends. He would’ve done his best to fight against anything that had come his way, anything that would’ve stopped him from going back to his life before and forgetting that he ever stepped foot into this place. But he just couldn’t.

For one, he was too drained of his energy and the mere thought of running got him nauseous and sick so it was a bust. Secondly, he also couldn’t see and with the little amounts of food and smaller quantities of water, he would never be able to muster up enough energy to even try to fight.

So he remained still and pliant as they wrapped something like a blindfold around his eyes, once, twice, and knotted it tightly so the fabric was biting into his hollow skin. He sensed the presence of the cold concrete floor leave him as he was lifted off the floor bridal style, what felt like the strong calloused hands of a man tucked under his knees and over his back, carrying the Thai skater with surprising care.

The hot atmosphere of his surroundings changed as soon as he felt his presence leave the dark room. It wasn’t cold or as biting, but it was still dark; the blindfold made sure of that.

He was carried around for what felt like a lot of minutes, before he felt the ambience of his environment change again, the air artificial and mildly cold, and he could somehow tell that the space he had entered was wide and spacious and… familiar.

Phichit was finally set down on a plastic surface; the plane was cold and bit into his skin. But it was the most comforting thing he had experienced since his arrival, so he relished in it. But he was still blind though, and again, not being able to see anything _sucked_ , so he was very much glad when it was finally removed.

The lights from the very high ceiling stung at his eyes, a little bit overwhelming after being in the dark for so long. But when he shut them to blotch out the glows, he was immediately surrounded by darkness, and that was the opposite of what he wanted.

When he opened them again, the lights weren’t as bright or stinging, and he could finally get a good look at where he was. The ceiling was high, large spotlights big enough to supply light to every corner; rows of bright red seats were arranged behind raised glass fences. In retrospect, he had never been so glad to see any kind of color in a _while_. Everything came out like it was in high definition, and he swore he was never taking them for granted ever again, but soon enough his focus had shifted.

In the center of it all was the most beautiful thing he had ached to see for long while; smooth and reflective as if it had just been re-surfaced and cleaned.

“An… ice rink?”

He had whispered the words, but not even he could hear himself. But that didn’t matter, not now. All he wanted to do was get on it, feel the familiar way his skates felt against his foot, the breeze in his face as he glided along the surface. But he still had to think about the reasoning behind bringing him to an environment he had thrived in so well.

He was looking at it from a seat facing the entrance of the rink; nobody seemed to have been around, the rink empty and silent except from him. Or so he thought.

“Like what you see?” The voice came from behind, sounding awfully close and startling the snot out of him. He moved to shift his gaze, but was stopped by a hand holding his head in place. “You need to answer my question…”

His breath hitched at the thought of himself making a mistake. He was glad that he could see at all, but he didn’t want to make anyone angry, especially not the person behind him. Phichit wasn’t sure what it was about him, but by his tone alone he could tell it was someone who didn’t like to be pissed off. He let out a raspy “Yes.” Then apologized, before feeling the pressure of hands on his head leave, and he released a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

“Very good.” The hand moved to pet his head. He noticed the owner of the voice had a Russian accent, his tone rich and virile, belonging to that of someone in his late twenties or early thirties. Phichit had the sudden urge to ask questions again; who was he? Why was he here? He was the only one that had spoken to him and replied to his words in this manner. But he kept his mouth sealed, not willing to test his waters.

“Thank you.”

“No need for that _Malen’kiy shokolad_.” He says. “I just want you to do something for me.” Do something for him? Phichit was confused. He didn’t know this man or what he wanted or why he was even there. He didn’t know anything. He had no idea what he could do for him enough to be able to let him out of the dark room.

“Skate for me would you?”

_Skate?_

“It is the only way I won’t be putting you back in the dark.”

_Skate?_

“What do you say hmm?”

_Skate?_ “Skate?” Sure he’d wanted to skate before, but he couldn’t skate, there was no way; not in his condition. He could barely even lift himself up from this chair without feeling like he would fall flat on his face, talk less of skating.

But he didn’t want to go back to the dark room. He didn’t want to be left to the darkness again, alone, blind, he… he couldn’t…he couldn’t go back there… he can’t…

“It is okay if you do not feel like it.” Hands were on his shoulder, his voice smug. “But you _will_ go back.”

He won’t go back.

“Okay,” He sighs, not feeling like he had much of a choice. “I-I’ll skate.”

 

Getting the skates on weren’t as difficult, the fact that he hadn’t eaten in a while actually made him a little less faint, but still weak all the same. He had managed to skate to the middle of the rink, but not without falling a few times. His head felt woozy from doing just that, he didn’t think he would be able to manage the step sequences or the jumping parts _at all_.

“I’ve heard that skaters are great at dancing and have eloquently impressive resilience.” The man whom he hadn’t gotten to look at yet sat at the spectator’s seat at an area which was higher up the stands, a remote in hand as he played with it by throwing it from one hand to the other. The movement was almost hypnotizing, until he stopped and directed it towards where the music box probably was. “I’d like to see that.”

The music for his free skate soon played across from the speakers, and his muscles responded as if on auto-play to the music. His starting felt okay, even if he was weak throughout, and the hope that he was going to complete the routine shined as bright as the gold medal hanging in his room.

The rest of his performance though… It was a disaster.

He fell more times than he could count, was unable to jump even a single toe loop, had lacked more than the usual energy that made his typical performances shine, portraying a lackluster presentation. And by the end of it, he was panting for oxygen that felt insufficient in his lungs and on all floors on the floor, the entirety of his energy gone and his head unsteady from all the motions he had to carry out.

He hadn’t even noticed another skater coming towards him until the loud sounds of hands clapping reached his ears. Phichit’s gaze remained on the icy plane of the rink beneath him; his blurred reflection being dotted by tears as he awaited what he feared was coming.

“That was an… interesting performance.” The black skates of the man reached his field of vision, a close distance to where he was crouched on the ice. “To be honest I was really expecting a lot less than what you did today.”

He was softly sobbing now, his heart beating as he feared for the next words leaving his captors mouth.

“But… a deal’s a deal.” He sounded bored but amused, he could tell the man was enjoying whatever he was doing right then. Relishing in his suffering. He was really a sick bastard. He feared what more he was able to do were he up to it. “Hugo!” He called out to someone, probably the same person that had carried him from the dark hell. “Take him to the room.”

“NO!!!”

Phichit lunged out in a surge of desperation at the man, finally getting a good look at his face as he pleaded into it. Those golden-brown eyes. He remembered them, from his first day. Those eyes now appeared surprised and shocked at the unexpected action from him, but only for a fraction of a second, before they shifted to mild annoyance and indifference. Phichit had grabbed onto his leg, and was sobbing fully. “Please! I’m begging you, I’ll do anything!!!”

The man’s brows rose, as if he was considering the prospect. He crouched down to where he was on the floor and tipped his face up by his chin. “Anything hmm?”

He nodded with as much vehemence as he could muster. “Yes, anything.”

The man hummed, a smirk playing at his handsome features as he pretended to be in deep thought. “I’ll think about it.” Was his only reply as the Thai skater was no sooner grabbed from behind and blindfolded again, the darkness blinding him once more, so familiar and still so unwelcomed. His tears wet the black fabric as he cried, not having the energy to fight off the person carrying him.

“N-no… don’t take me back please! I skated, you can’t take me back!”

“Shshshhhh…” A gloved, slender finger rested against his lips, doing little to shut off his begs and weeps. “Do not worry _Malen’kiy shokolad_.” The hand travelled to rest on the tanned boy’s cheek and he instinctively cradled against it. “Everything will soon be over.”

“Why… why are you doing this? W-what do you want from me?”

“Nothing you can’t already offer _Malen’kiy._ ” His hand slipped away, and he heard him skating, the way his blades moved across the ice sounded like he was spinning in large radius circles. “But you are not the only skater that will be ‘visiting’ me, so you’re offer might not stand very long.”

The skating stopped, and soon his hand was against his cheek again, his thumb wiping away a tear track from the light chocolate skin. “Not to fear.” His voice was a breathy whisper, breath hot and vibrant against his skin. “You will see me soon.”

And that was the last thing he said before he was taken away again.

  
…………………………………………………………………………………….....

  
The police had extended the search for the Thai boy, and the news of the disappeared skater reached the Moscow Police Department in no less than a day after an unsuccessful week of combing.

_At the police department…_

“Marshall, look at this.” The blonde haired inspector said curiously while looking at a report. “This was filed a week ago at the police department in St. Petersburg.”

“Let me see.” A brunette male leaning on her desk replies, hand stuck out as he collects the documents and scans through them with perceptive, analyzing eyes.

“It’s a report filed for a missing person.” He finally states, dropping the files back on her table.

“Not just any missing person.” She shook her head; the fringe that went over her brown eyes was swept behind her ear. “It’s a famous figure skater, participated at last year’s Grand Prix. Good kid.”

“You’re barely 30. He’s got to at least be 3 years younger before he’s classified as a kid.”

“Are you trying to make a point with that statement?”

“No.” He shook his head, a grin of amusement on his face before his expression turned serious. “But I do know of who he is. It’s outside our jurisdiction anyway. I mean all the way in St. Petersburg outside.”

“He’s internationally known so it makes it an intercontinental issue.” She points out, eyes lingering on the papers of the documents as she reminisced an important conversation. “I’d had a conversation with the chief some weeks back, about a serial kidnapper that takes an interest in Winter sports, especially its contesters.”

Marshall seemed to stop toying with his pocket pen and turned to face her. “I’ve heard about that. One of the victims was found and you held an interview with him at the hospital. _Without me_.”

“This is not the time to make things about you.” She sighed in mild frustration, ignoring the almost hurt expression on his face. “Anyway, Commissioner Lopez assigned me to do it alone.” She could’ve sworn she saw something of a frown adorn his face upon mentioning the Commissioners name. Her partner in crime-solving had always had a sour spot for the man, and she could think up a number of reasons why. “The things I found out Marshall… they weren’t pretty.”

“Explain?”

“Maybe later, but all I can tell you now is these people are twisted. And from their actions over the years it would seem like the organization’s a terrorist group.”

“One that targets the winter sports world?”

“Exactly that.” She says, eyes going wide with realization and intrigue. “And I think they’re striking again.” The thought was sickening. So soon after two years subsequently after that huge heist? Just what were these people getting at?

“How so?” Marshall questioned. “Inspector.” She gave him a look, and he sighed. “Inez… how are you so sure? I mean it’s only been one skater; he could’ve been kidnapped by any other person with any other intention. And besides don’t they attack a _number_ of people and not just one? You’re doing that thing where you jump into conclusions again.”

“It hasn’t failed me before, I doubt it would now.” She replies. “I can feel it Marshall, it’s them. And I know who they’re targeting now.”

“Okay…” He seemed to give it a thought itself, his brows later raising in indication that it might have clicked, but his attention was on her as she assumed he wanted to get a peek at her point of view. “Who then?”

Two words. “Figure skaters.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It’s pretty long)  
> So, longest chapter so far. Hope you enjoyed the second cut of seeing how Phichit was doing (I actually really love him and hate to see him suffer but it’s essential for the plot so bear with me). And side note: I have zero idea how the police, detective thing works so if ya’ll got any opinions or useful information please provide in he comments! That would be a great help. (Maybe I should start watching CSI and NCIS).
> 
> And also, research has proven that sensory deprivation (especially isolation in the dark) has proven to make an individual lose their mind. In the span of 48 hours, one would have already had his paranoia, hallucinatory tendencies and loss of rationality alongside numbness and unwillingness to live. (No offense to blind people!!! I think the mind losing only occurs when you’re isolated AND blind. Or I don’t really know, never spoken to a blind person before). Any who, keep in touch! And don’t forget to review and kudos (I’ll do my best to reply :) )
> 
> And also thanks to Hanairoh and Ayy for commenting and every other person that left Kudos on the last chapters!!!
> 
> Malen’kiy shokolad- Little chocolate (Wasn’t my idea tbh)


	4. Hey Baba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Anyway, your sweet boyfriend Otabek called. I wonder what for?” Her tone was innately suggestive, and she humored in the way he got annoyed so very easily.
> 
> “HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND!!!” Was the last thing he yelled before calling her ‘annoying hag’ and slamming the door in her face while she laughed and went over to the sitting room to continue her movie, stuffing her face with chips while Pacific Rim’s intro played across the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is going to contain less suffering than the previous one, a little fluff before the torture continues. (So I don’t seem as such a horrendous person). Though everything that happens in the story is important so don’t miss a thing! I also don’t know how to write fluff so…

  
Chapter 4: ‘Hey Baba.’

 

_**Yuuri** _

 

Yuuri had woken up to a hand resting on top of his, a thumb soothingly caressing his knuckles as he arose from his slumber, which was a bit funny… he didn’t remember going to sleep.

“Viktor…?” His breath was barely above a whisper, but the silver haired glory resting beside him on a chair sat up immediately, crystal blue eyes softening in relief as they met clear brown ones.

“Yuuri… how are you?” His hand covered his own fully now, squeezing it tenderly.

“I’m fine.” He was in his own clothes, albeit different from the ones he remembered wearing before… before… what had happened again? “What happened?” Yuuri found himself asking, worry darkening his eyes. The only time he’s lost his memory of something was during the banquet after getting drunk on twenty glasses of champagne. He hoped a similar situation hadn’t occurred. “Did I… overdose?”

Viktor looked confused, like the question was ridiculous in itself, before smiling gently with a small chuckle. “No Yuuri, you hit your head on the ice when you were skating remember?”

“Enough to knock me unconscious?”

“Not really…” He says. “You seemed to have had a concussion and we had a hard time trying to keep you awake until we got to the hospital. You threw up in the ambulance, and it was getting worse. We luckily reached the hospital in time and they managed to stabilize you.”

“Oh no… I hope I hadn’t caused too much worry.”

“No, not at all.” He smiled. “Even Yurio was concerned for you. He wouldn’t stop yelling at me to go get some food for when you woke up.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh slightly at the thought. The kid was really a kitten hiding behind a tiger’s persona. And speak of the devil, the door immediately barged open and in came the hurricane of teenage fury himself, typical tiger print jacket and sneakers alongside a packet of something familiar looking. A nurse had come in right after, looking concerned and annoyed, but Yuuri had told her it was okay and watched her leave, although warily.

“Oi Katsudon, here.” Yuri said with much indifference and then threw the brown paper bag at him, which landed directly on his lap. “Figured you would be hungry so I got these.”

Yuuri smiled in gratitude. “Thanks Yurio.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He shrugged. “I only had to because Viktor was about to set the kitchen on fire trying to make borscht again.” Everyone on team Russia knew that cooking wasn’t Viktor’s fort, even the silver-haired skater himself, though it didn’t stop him from trying. “God knows he can’t cook to save his life. I think the attempt might have given you food poisoning…”

“I’m still here Yurio.”

“Shut it old man!” The young blond snapped, but the older didn’t flinch, already used to Yuri’s tendencies after being rink mates for so long. Almost like him and Phichit…

His breath hitched at the thought of his best friend, and his hand immediately went to the side table where his phone was. Viktor and Yuri were talking while he scrolled through his messages, looking for any recent ones he might have missed in the short time he was out. And lo and behold, there were unchecked messages still in his inbox. And they were from Phichit.

His heart had skipped a beat at the prospect. Did that mean that they had found him? Had he been trying to contact Yuuri ever since? He tapped on his name and immediately felt his hope deflate as they were just messages he hadn’t checked before. _From a week ago_. Hold on…

Messages he hadn’t checked before!!!

Yuuri sat up as thoughts began to ponder through his head. Why hadn’t he seen them before? Maybe he was too busy worrying to bother checking his phone for messages? He didn’t care much as he immediately scrolled through to view them.

Yuri and Viktor had stopped talking, and Viktor had said he was going to check on something for a quick minute. He’d felt a chaste kiss on the cheek and heard the door closing but other than that his concentration was fully on his phone.

The first few messages were pictures of Phichit at the bar, drinking and having fun. Normal pictures his friend usually posted on most Friday nights, especially back when they were roommates in Detroit. He smiled in remembrance of those days, the days he’d spent longing after Viktor and being teased by the Thai on his collection of Viktor posters and unrequitable crush.

The next photos were still of him at the bar, although this time he was sitting, drinking and taking selfies a fair distance from a wide window. Yuuri’s observant eyes however, couldn’t help but notice the figure on the other side of the window who kept on appearing in the photos. It was creepy too. Completely dark, dark themed clothes and shades, seemingly looking at Phichit in all pictures.

It sent shivers down his spine.

He scrolled through to the next messages, surprised to find only two left. The second one was a voice message.

_‘Hey Yuuri! The club was awesome, had some fun : )!!!’_

The message made it seem that his friend was oblivious to the stalker at the window, but then upon hearing the next message, it sent panic through his system.

_“You ever had that weird feeling of someone watching you? Crazy right?”_

So he _did_ notice, albeit a little bit late into the night he was sure. The message was no sooner followed by the sound of the phone dropping to the floor, struggling, muffled cries, and then the distant noises of footsteps coming closer, as if the person was picking the phone up, then subsequently, vehicle doors jamming and an engine revving.

He listened closely as the recording continued, the slow breaths of someone as the vehicle moved. A phone ringing. Then nothing, the message had ended and he had every urge in him to race over to the station to turn it in. The police and investigators had been trying to get clues or even a single trace of his whereabouts and if he could get his phone to them, maybe they would find something on him. Maybe the guy at the window was a well-known criminal and they would have no troubling finding him. Although, the thought of his best friend being at the mercy of such a person was quite unsettling.

Yuuri’s mind was made. As soon as he was out of there he was heading over to the station.

Yuuri grabbed a piroshky from the paper bag and bit into it, savoring its warmth and goodness as it fulfilled its duty as delicious food, and then proceeded to stand up. Only to be stopped by an ache permeating through his knee. Viktor decided to come in at just that moment with Yuri ranting in Russian, looking mildly annoyed but calmer than before. His fiancé immediately noticed what he was attempting to do and rushed to sit him down, ignoring Yuri’s rants and going to help him.

“ _Vozlyublennaya_ , what are you doing?” He had forgotten about the pain that had erupted in his leg which led to his literal downfall. But now that he remembered, his thoughts went back to the reason why he had even fallen in the first place which he still didn’t know yet. “The doctor said you suffered stress damage to your leg while skating Yuuri, you will have to be careful.”

“Stress damage?” He asked out loud, not really knowing the severity or effect it might have had.

“It must have been over the disappearance of your friend.” Viktor had warned Yuuri to not worry too much, especially not while he was skating and preparing for the upcoming event, but he was stubborn sometimes. “And also coupled by the fact that you were falling a lot of times.” Ah, that explained things, at least most of it. He was still a tad confused at the entire thing though, but the medicine department was never his fort so he was probably going to leave the thinking to the doctors.

“The doctor says you should take it easy a bit, and lay off skating for a while.”

“How long?”

“Two weeks at least.”

Yuuri nodded in understanding. “Okay.” His determined brown eyes went over to meet the blue ones. “But after that I’m going right back to skate.”

“Whatever you want Yuuri.” He said with a fond smile and leaned in for a kiss and it was slow, full of love and admiration for each other, Viktor’s lips soft against his, the feel still lingering even after they parted.

“Oh for goodness sake!” They heard Yuri, whom they had both forgotten was there, yelling and looking irritated. “Can you two be disgusting somewhere else?”

“Oh Yurio! I forgot you were here!”

“Don’t call me that old man! Your old age is catching up to you is the only reason that explains why you forget things.” His tone was sour, and the two knew he didn’t really mean what he said sometimes, but the couple had reached in for a kiss again just to spite him and they were glad to say it worked. The small blonde made a disgusted sound then turned to stomp away. “I’ll be in the car!” He yelled, muttering what were most likely insults in Russian.

A moment of silence passed over them after the door was shut and the two were alone for the time being. “Viktor, we need to go to the station.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” He asked, confusion crossing his features. It was a sudden topic to bring up, and they hadn’t needed to go back there since a week ago.

“Well, I found something on my phone.” He fumbled for where he had kept it on the bed, finding it and then hurriedly scrolling through its contents. “It’s from—well, it _was_ from him from a week ago. Phichit, I mean. And it was a message, and I think it’s going to help them find him sooner, so—”

“Yuuri.” His words were silenced by the man in front of him, his grey brows met together in a worried frown and sky blue eyes shone with concern. Yuuri looked on with wide eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because Yuuri…” He leaned in closely, their faces barely inches apart. “I already promised the doctor I would take care of you, and we can’t have you worrying so much now, can we?”

“N-no, but I just—”

“I understand that you are worried for him Lyubov moya, but you need to let the police handle it…”

“But Viktor—“

“Shh.” He held a finger to his lips. “None of that now… we can do whatever you want after your fully rested okay?”

Yuuri thought it over. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. “Okay… but after that I’m turning it in.”

“As planned _Vozlyublennaya_.”

“Alright.” He sighs, giving in and then taking Viktor’s offer to help him up. From what he knew they had already cleared him out, and it was left for the doctor to do a final check-up before offering them prescribed medications. Then they would go home.

 

“How about this one?”

“Seen that way too many times.”

“Okay… this one? You did say it was one of your favorite movies.”

“Vitya, you don’t _like_ horror movies.”

“That’s not true.” He says with an indignant pout Yuuri couldn’t help admit was cute. “I just don’t prefer watching them at night.”

“Viktor you got upset after watching Chuckie and then stayed mad at me for four hours after I joked about getting the doll. And that was at last week afternoon.”

Viktor muttered something about it being a blatant lie and then resumed going through their stock of Blu-ray CD’s and DVD’s. Yuuri laughed and continued to help him.

The two had gotten home after they had dropped Yuri at the apartment he shared with the other Russian skaters and then proceeded to select a movie to watch for the night after Yuuri outvoted Viktor using the power of Eros (He hadn’t originally thought it would work).

After looking through their collection for two hours and fifty minutes and finding nothing worth watching, Viktor wanted to resort to their original plan of a night in bed. And as tempting as it was to divulge in every kind of kinky leisure with the man he loved, he wasn’t about to let Viktor have his way. Not again.

What he hadn’t taken into account was it backfiring.

“What’s this we have here?” Viktor’s voice protruded from their room in their closet and Yuuri had to stand up from his position on the floor where he was petting Makkachin to attend to him. He found the silver-haired man on his side of their closet, crouching down to underneath the shelves and rummaging through a box that had ‘Yuuri’s things’ written on it and ‘Pls don’t touch’ underneath in a smaller font. The thing had been shipped along with his other things months ago when he had moved to St. Petersburg to live with his fiancé and he had forgotten all about the thing, letting it grow old, collecting dust. Until now, that is.

Viktor, who hardly ever followed instructions, ignored the one written on the box which was the only thing protecting its privacy, and opened the top.

It was just as dusty inside as it was out, and Yuuri was too late to stop him before his hand had reached into the box and pulled out a dust covered DVD case.

Usually, Yuuri wouldn’t have minded that they had found something that wasn’t in their movie collection (Which they would have to update soon), but that only counted if it was actually a movie.

“And what’s this?” Viktor questions Yuuri, blowing the dust off the surface to show a blank white plane with ‘Yuuri’s memoirs’ written in Japanese.

“I-it’s nothing!” He says, hurrying over to take it when Viktor used his _very unfair_ height advantage and stood above him with his arm raised so he couldn’t reach it. “Hey! Give it back!”

“Not until you tell me what’s in it Yuuri!” He said in a sing-song tone, looking so smug in all that cheerfulness and Yuuri would’ve smacked it off his face if he weren’t the man he loved. But there was no way he could tell Viktor what was in the tape. The only person to have known about it was Phichit and the Thai hadn’t stopped referencing everything Yuuri did or blabbing his embarrassing ordeals out loud for three months. And that was only when Yuuri found blackmail material enough to keep him quiet. (It involved him, a cat and a dwarf pony but no one’s bringing that up again).

Yuuri screeched comically when Viktor took off running to the sitting room to play it while Yuuri was left in the room, trying not to irritate his knee as he fought to catch up to him. He groaned, mildly annoyed at the inconvenience, and soon enough an idea popped into his head. Yuuri sucked in a large portion of air, counted a single second, and then released a deafening pained yell as he lowered himself to the floor, clutching his knee.

Yuuri fought to hide a grin as he heard Viktor gasp, before he came rushing to Yuuri’s side and asking him what was wrong.

“I-it’s my leg… I fell when I tried to run after you Viktor.”

“Oh no, this is all my fault.” He says looking genuinely worried. He helps Yuuri up from the floor and carries him bridal style with surprising strength to the bed. “You stay right here Yuuri, I’ll be right back.”

He no sooner disappears out the door, leaving Yuuri alone in his bed to smile proudly at himself. Typically, Yuuri wasn’t the best actor even though he was able to pull of expressions like a pro on the ice, so despite feeling self-satisfied at the outcome of his plan, he was a bit surprised it had actually worked. Maybe he was really getting better at it.

Fast paced playing of a piano played across the room and he shortly recognized it as his phone’s ringtone. Getting up from his position on the bed, he searched the room for his phone, only finding that it was inside the dresser drawers when he heard Viktor entering the room.

“Hey Yuuri, I—Yuuri? I thought your leg was hurting?”

“Yes.” He said in an ‘isn’t-it-obvious?’ manner as he stood leaning on the dresser table. It of course genuinely hurt when he stood on his own and put his full weight on it for twenty minutes, but not right then. And most likely not as bad as Viktor was probably thinking. “Relax Viktor, I stressed it I didn’t break it. It only hurt so much because I put so much pressure on it.” A look of relief rested on his fiancé’s expression, and Yuuri had almost forgotten why he had pretended to hit his knee in the first place. “So Viktor, since we couldn’t find a movie why don’t we do what you wanted to do.” He made his voice _super_ suggestive and even gave him that special ‘Eros’ look he always loved.

All Viktor did was blink in momentary confusion before blasting forth his heart-shaped smile. “Oh Yuuri, you’re very silly you know.”

“I’m… silly?” For saying they should have some sex? Which was his idea in the first place?

“Of course my sweet pork cutlet. Don’t think I have forgotten about the DVD I wanted to watch!” He says. “Which is why I came here to carry you to the sitting room myself. I’ve already set up the player.”

Yuuri wanted to ask why he would refuse such an offer to watch a fifteen minute video, especially one from him that _he_ brought up. Maybe his fiancé was just having his own blissfully petty revenge for when Yuuri had rejected it in the first place? But he only let Viktor carry him even though he had said he could walk on his own, forgetting his phone that had rang on the dresser. His mother had said that she was going to call him today, so he made a plan to call back after he was done with Viktor.

“Viktor, you really don’t have to watch this…” He was settled on the couch now, Viktor right beside him holding the remote. Yuuri was tired of trying to wrestle it from him for an entire three minutes and resigned to futile begging.

“All the more reason why I want to Yuuri.”

“What if it’s a horror movie?”

“If I see the first signs of it being horror themed I’ll stop it.”

“Well…”

“I know it’s not horror Yuuri. It has you’re name on it.”

“That doesn’t mean—“

“And your picture was on the back of the case. You can’t convince me to stop it now, it’s already playing.”

This wasn’t going to go well. For him especially.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

_**Seung-Gil** _

Seung-Gil sat alone at a booth located at the corner of a café; phone in hand, half-finished mocha on the table as he scrolled aimlessly through Twitter.

It was almost evening time, and only a few people remained. The soft orange-pink glow of the sunset reflected against the glass windows, people milled about outside, their voices though, muffled by the thick lead-crystal. He often found himself forgetting why he was there, at a coffee shop in St. Petersburg, in the first place. It didn’t matter though; he was leaving the next day.

He had originally planned this trip as a little get away before he could go back to resume training. He remembered his coach warning him against being away over a week; she hadn’t wanted him to get too distracted to miss his training or forget that he had a competition to prepare for, even though they both knew that would never happen. After that all that, it had been left for him to look for a place to stay. There had been a variety of choices; calm places with enough resources to grant him exactly what he needed, and he had landed here.

Unusually it wasn’t for any of the reasons he had mentioned prior. He had just one day been scrolling through Instagram and had found a photo posted by that boy from Thailand, a caption beneath it that said ‘Packing for my trip to St. Petersburg!’ followed by several meaningless hash tags. And his first train of thought was to go there.

He’d had a very heated argument with himself on whether or not his decision to go to the same place as the Thai boy in high hopes that they would run into each other was considered stalking. But by the time he had actually even reconsidered turning back, he was already on the plane flight to Russia, so there wasn’t a thing he could do.

The first day was admittedly okay, it was afternoon time when he had arrived and was already on his way to his already booked hotel. And just as if it had been planned by the inexorable wheels of fate, the two had bumped into each other, coincidentally staying in the same hotel, coincidentally on the same floor, coincidentally surprised to see the other. But unlike some people, he didn’t believe in coincidences, so he had to wonder whether this had been planned by the dark-skinned boy himself and whether or not his coach had found out about his stalking tendencies and constructed the whole thing. He still wasn’t very sure and refuted the idea of calling to ask her, though he wouldn’t say he was upset.

Having him there as his room neighbor wasn’t such a bad thing, he was actually… _enjoyable_ company, albeit he had to confess he talked a little bit _too_ much. Or maybe he himself talked too little. Either way it was reason enough—coupled with the fact that he had to rest because of the after-flight activities he was made to indulge in (Sitting at a fast food restaurant and having a self-indulgent chat wasn’t exactly strenuous but still)—was enough to decline the offer to follow him to a night club to have some fun.

Everyone in the skating community knew he was never the kind of person to engage in things as profuse as night clubs. Nor did they peg him as a guy who would ever even think about those things—and as ungrateful as he was for the labels, it was actually true. He wasn’t criticizing those who _did_ though, he just chose to spend his free nights differently. So of course he said no.

He had looked a little upset, and had an admittedly cute pout when he had called him a wet blanket (jokingly), but he’d promised they would see each other the next day (And he’d only said that because they literally were a few doors away from each other). But that was what he had thought until the fateful day Phichit Chulanont of Thailand was reported missing.

There were times he’d blamed himself. Maybe if he had followed him—no matter how begrudgingly—to maybe a glass or two of beer, he wouldn’t have let this happen. He didn’t know why he felt so responsible for this, but he just did. There could’ve been a way to prevent this. _He_ could’ve been a way to prevent this.

But here he was, aimlessly scrolling through Twitter, a now empty cup of mocha on the table, the sky already dimming from the sun’s setting, and people still milling about like it was day time.

His bags were already packed, and his coach had already been called, and his flight booked. He remembered the Thai had planned to also leave the next day; he also had a competition to train for which was two months away, and he’d had every intention of competing against him and sharing the podium with him maybe. He wondered if that would happen now, if he would be found. _What if he was never found?_

He chided himself against thinking that way. Of course he was going to be found, the police knew who he was and the importance of him being found before Four Continents. They knew he was important to the figure skating world, to Thailand, to his family, to _him_.

He’d stepped out of the café as soon as he had left his tip on the table, hailing a cab so he could take a ride to the hotel without worrying about being snatched off the road. Luckily, the driver understood English which was only one of the three languages he could speak properly, and had no trouble taking him to his desired destination.

When he had reached the floor to his room, he couldn’t help but trail his attention to Phichit’s room, which was undoubtedly occupied by another person, though he didn’t know. He didn’t care to. Seung-Gil and Yuuri Katsuki had already taken the responsibility of shipping the Thai boy’s things back to his home and returning the key to the hotel, so he didn’t have to worry about some stranger going through his stuff.

He was already going into his room when the door to Phichit’s former room was opening, and out of sheer curiosity, he looked to see who it was.

It was a guy, tall, red hair and green eyes, a light indifferent look on his face as he turned around to lock his door. He recognized him from the fast-food he and Phichit had gone to that first day, he was a waiter. He had recognized both of them as skaters, and had a polite smile when asking for autographs. When the red-head turned around from the door, their eyes met, but only for a fraction of a second before Seung-Gil disappeared into his hotel room. He didn’t want him to know he was staring. He wasn’t someone that stared.

After a moment, his thoughts went to his packed bags. Seeing as he really didn’t have much to do, he headed over to double-check his things in case he forgot to put any of his belongings in his bags.

If someone was going to replace him in the room, he at least didn’t want them snooping through his stuff.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

_**Mila, Yuri** _

“Oh Yuraaaa! Guess who just called?” Mila said, singing out his name in that annoying manner she knew he hated.

“What do you want hag?” Yuri said, signature scowl on his face as he opened his room door, allowing her to get a peek at its disheveled state. Her safe assumption was that he had been looking for his phone, the very phone she now swung in front of his face. “Hey! What are you doing with my phone?!” He snatched the item from her hand.

“Not even a thank you Yuri? I found it in the living room tucked into the couch, your welcome.” In truth she hadn’t honestly been looking for it in the first place. Mila had sat down with a bowl of chips and the TV on, ready to watch a movie when something had vibrated against her thigh, she had been surprised to see Yuri’s phone there. He usually never let it out of his sight. “Anyway, your sweet boyfriend Otabek called. I wonder what for?” Her tone was innately suggestive, and she humored in the way he got annoyed so very easily.

“HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND!!!” Was the last thing he yelled before calling her ‘annoying hag’ and slamming the door in her face while she laughed and went over to the sitting room to continue her movie, stuffing her face with chips while Pacific Rim’s intro played across the screen.

 

“Hey Baba.” Yuri stepped out of the room, phone in hand while he looked suspiciously at the screen. “Are you sure it was Beka that called? ‘Cuz—” He’d approached the living room, and was surprised to find her already dozing off like a tired old lady, the movie she was watching—which he’d already watched more than twice—wasn’t even halfway through, and her bowl of disgusting sour cream and onion chips was still full.

He let out an irritated noise and went over to her. “Baba. Hey, wake up.” He said louder, poking her on the head. The only response he’d gotten from her was her soft breaths as she slept soundly. It was a little weird for him; the hag was always a light sleeper.

The chill of the night’s wind made him shiver, and it was then that he noticed the door to the apartment was left slightly open, only a crack, like someone had forgotten to shut it after coming in. He sighed as he walked over to close it. “Stupid. Always telling her to shut the door. Old ears probably don’t work.” He grumbled, going back to turn the TV off and throw the wretched bowl of her ill-flavored chips in the trash. He honestly didn’t know what she saw in them.

After several other attempts to wake her up to go to her room, all of which failed, he resorted to letting her lay there and then getting a blanket for her to use while she slept. Mila hadn’t even flinched while he did all these things; she was seriously out-cold.

Whatever. The hag had better thank him when she woke up in the morning because when next she was passed out on the couch she was on her own. He just hoped no rodent or stray animals managed to wonder into the house while it was open and Mila was blissfully and obliviously asleep, because he would make sure she got rid of it by herself.

His mind went to Otabek again. He was freaking confused. When he’d called Otabek after he was returned his phone, the Kazakh was clueless as to what Yuri was talking about. It turns out he hadn’t even called him in the first place, and Yuri had been somewhat disappointed. He was hoping he had wanted to talk to him that day. The old geezer was being more of a nag than normal and he really wanted someone to rant about it to someone. Mila was an exception, but he wanted to rant to someone he didn’t actually find annoying.

The two had talked over the phone anyway, seeing as how Yuri was already calling and he had actually been missing him. The two had talked about meeting up, maybe Yuri would go to Kazakhstan this time instead of Otabek going to St. Petersburg. He was perfectly capable of handling himself on a flight.

He went to bed contentedly, the thought of visiting his best friend the last thing on his mind before he went to sleep.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

**_Viktor_ **

Viktor went to sleep that night with the happiest smile on his face.

Yuuri was asleep beside him, no doubt still adorably mortified at the embarrassing video’s he had watched of Yuuri’s childhood. Whoever’s bright idea it was to put all of those memories into one amazing CD was undoubtedly the most blessed person to exist.

Even in his dreams, he still could not get out of his mind the sound of a cute little ten year old Yuuri dressed in black and wearing a white wig as he pretended to be him.

 

_“Yuuri what are you doing?”_

_“I’m not Yuuri, Yuko! I’m Viktor.”_

_*laughs* “Oh Yuuri! You’re ridiculous!!!”_

_“No… I’m Viktoooooooor.”_

 

“Oh no are you okay?” She rushed over to him to attend to the boy that had now fallen on the ice at his attempt at a triple toe loop.

And how could he forget the one that had been taken a few years back while Yuuri was in college and he and Phichit were roommates. Yuuri himself didn’t even know how the video had been added to the mix, but it was funny to watch. Yuuri’s reaction was even funnier.

 

_“Oh Viktor, nice of you to finally notice me…” Yuuri was in his pajama shorts, looking sultry and speaking to one of the many Viktor posters hanging on Yuuri’s side of the room. “Yeah, I know.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “I dedicated this program to you. I’m sure you found it… appealing…” He leaned against the wall, pretty eyes blinking adorably at the poster as he bit his lip alluringly._

_Behind the camera, Phichit was giggling silently as he hid behind a bed._

_“What’s that Viktor? You want to take this to the room?” He says, voice husky. “Now, now.” He chided. “You know I like to take things slow…” And just as Yuuri was about to kiss the wall poster, Phichit jumped out from behind the bed, shocking the peanuts out of the Japanese boy and causing him to fall to the floor, taking notice of Phichit who was laughing hysterically._

_“H-how much of that did you see?” Phichit had hidden the camera behind him and all he could hear was Yuuri’s scared, mortified voice as Phichit only laughed and laughed and laughed…_

 

  
Yuuri had his face hidden in his hands throughout the entire fifteen minutes of the video, too embarrassed and too ashamed to even look at Viktor during and after, especially when it came to the parts concerning his undying crush on him. He remembered other embarrassing feats that occurred in the short recordings, but the ones about him were his most remembered.

He’d planned on buying Yuuri a white wig just to humor him, and also to dote at Yuuri’s cute embarrassed face. When the whole thing blew over, he was going to ask Phichit if he had any more videos of Yuuri accidentally embarrassing himself.

Now Viktor never set any alarms, and he knew Yuuri preferred to be woken up on his own or by Viktor when he didn’t feel like waking up to the buzzing vibrations of his phone, so when he had been jostled out of his dreams at 5:30 in the morning by the incessant ringing from his own phone, he was a little confused.

“Hello?” He spoke sleepily into it as soon as caller ID had shown it to be his friend, Mila. “Mila? What is it? Why are you calling?”

But Mila was only speaking in panicked tones, transitioning from Russian, to English to even _French_. It was like her language functioning was broken. So he’d spent the next ten seconds trying to calm her down enough to at least hear what she was trying to say. “Okay Mila… now tell me what is wrong.”

Mila sounded like she had been crying her eyes out for hours, so he worried. He hoped nothing too terrible had happened. Unfortunately the next words that flew out of her mouth worsened his fears.

“Viktor… H-he’s gone.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buh-BAM! Cliffhanger!
> 
> So… I’m sure you know what happens from here, assuming you’ve all read the summary, cuz I ain’t writing that part again (Cuz the summary is basically dialogue). Though what I WILL be writing will be a direct continuation from that part. Anyway enjoy this for a while! Oh, and also, the reason why Yuuri’s seeing those messages a week later would come up eventually in case you were curious!!! And I made a mistake in the beginning Chapter 1 prologue (It was only a little but it’s important so please check!)
> 
> And thank you Hanairoh for commenting again!
> 
> Don’t forget to leave kudos and a comment!!! <3<3<3 Luv ya boos! ;) 
> 
> Vozlyublennaya- Sweetheart.


	5. 'N-no… stay away from me'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ground beneath him felt smooth and cold against his skin, an uncomfortable sensation that he knew he wasn’t supposed to feel upon waking up. Where was his warm, soft mattress? His fluffy array of pillows was missing, and he couldn’t feel Potya beside him or her soft purrs resonating against his chest were she was supposed to be. His phone which he kept beside him at all times was lost as well, and opening his eyes didn’t help his state of confusion, because everything was all white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The suffering continues!!! (Please don’t peg me as a sadist I actually don’t really take delight in the suffering of others).

Chapter 5: “N-no… stay away from me.”

 

_**Viktor** _

  
Viktor had stood up to leave the room while Yuuri still slept, the urge to pace around in incessant worry coursing through him while Mila relayed the events of her morning to him.

“Mila are you sure? Have you checked the others? Whether he went over there. What about the neighbors…. His dedushka what about him? No, not even Yakov? I think I’d know if Yuri was in my house Mila.”

After going through every list of possible people Yuri could be with and finding nothing, the next thing they did was to host a search party, pre-planned of course. None of them lived far from the ice rink, or each other, so they would do it together. They could take several streets, do home visits to check on him, and if by 12 PM they were not successful, Yakov had already planned on contacting the police.

He discussed this with Mila and the others while he got himself ready and then made some coffee for himself and some for Yuuri, keeping his safe and in a flask. His Sleeping Beauty was still in the room, sleeping as sound as a flower. He’d gone over to Yuuri’s side before he left, giving him a soft kiss on the forehead and then leaving a note, bringing Makkachin with him since he was good at identification and had a strong nose.

As expected but not as aspired, the search was a bust.

There wasn’t a trace of Yuri anywhere. No one had seen him, not even the people living around them. Even his phone was gone, and the only possible way of tracking it seamlessly was via the police. So employing the next course of action, the police had been contacted, and they had been told they would be given a feedback after they had done their own thorough check-up. Mila had wanted to argue that they had already checked and found nothing, but Yakov had held her back. She seemed the most distressed among them.

Yuuri had woken up somewhere in between, unsurprisingly shocked at the news and as worried as Viktor was when it had been revealed to him. He’d been mildly upset that he hadn’t been woken up to join the search, but Viktor had to remind the Japanese boy of his leg and why he wasn’t allowed to stress it, or even stress himself.

The couple had spent the day worrying and hoping for the missing boy.

“Viktor, what do we do now?” Yuuri had asked later after Viktor returned from taking Makkachin outside. He’d actually gone out with Makkachin to do something other than dog owner responsibilities, but he knew Yuuri wasn’t a man to make assumptions, so his fiancé didn’t say much apart from that question as he had arrived, his face calm and melancholic from the stress and worry.

Viktor merely shrugged and slid off his coat as he released Makkachin to play with her toys lying behind the couch. “I don’t know Yuuri.” He admitted sadly and went to join his worried fiancé on the couch. He honestly had no idea what to do unless something he had forgotten to check popped up in his mind, but nothing did. It aggravated him. “All we can do is wait for feedback from the police.”

Yuuri was silent for an instant, looking ahead and blank. His mind was elsewhere, beyond the walls of their home and beyond St. Petersburg, his eyes closed as he leaned against Viktor while his arm only wrapped around Yuuri’s shoulder.

Two friends have been lost in less than two weeks. No one knew who was responsible or why this was happening, the implications were getting blurrier by the day, the danger they were in unknown to them, not knowing if they could ever be safe. But how could they be if there was no comfort sleeping at night? Knowing you could be snatched from your own home while asleep and lost in your dreams.

“Viktor…. I’m scared.” Yuuri relayed, his voice wavers like he was about to cry. Viktor wanted to cry as well, Yuri was almost like a younger brother to him, and he wished this of all things had happened to someone else. Or rather it didn’t happen at all. But he needed to be strong for the both of them. He needed to be strong for Yuuri.

“I know Yuuri… I am too.” He confesses. “But they will make it out of this. We all will. But we have to be strong for them and not give up. Okay Yuuri?”

He only receives a small nod from him, and that at least is okay for both men.

 

Yakov had already had a press conference organized for the skaters to give later in the day, police search was still underway, and everything else was silent.

Practice that day was equally silent, with the usual small talk and tiny banter here and there, at least something to distract them for a little while. Practice however, wasn’t the same without the little blonde’s harsh insults, and uncalled f-bombs and his attitude that wasn’t very appreciated but was the reason they loved him anyway.

Later that very day, an interview had been planned with both local and national news stations with all his rink mates and his coach involved. Everyone giving their pleas and hope of safe return. Mila hadn’t even finished before sending out death threats—to which she was later detained and scolded by Yakov.

The rest of the skaters were brief, but somber and dismal and the next day, the interview went viral.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Antagonist…** _

  
Mikhail was a man of business.

He was a man who believed that the world was his throne.

He was a man who preferred his dinner on golden platter.

Anyone who wanted to give him less drowned in their own blood. Those that had given him less burnt in the hot fumes and gases of fire, before they were eventually sent to hell to deal with the devil’s own flames.

He didn’t think like other people, and for that he was labeled a psychopath. A sociopath.

All he was was ambitious.

He wondered why people refused to see that.

“Oh well…” He leaned back and watched the people across the screen as they pleaded him for the safe return of their fellow competitors. Most of them cried, some of them threatened, either way it was an interesting feat.

Nothing more satisfying than hearing that everything was going the way they should…

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Inez** _

_At Moscow PD…_

  
“Uh… you’re not gonna like this…”

“I’m a cop I think I can handle a little bad news.”

“You’ll say it now but—”

“Oh for goodness sake just talk already!”

“Okay fine, fine…” He sighs. “We’re out of coffee.”

Her eyes travelled to her partner at a speed that wasn’t supposed to be humanly possible. “What do you mean we’re out of coffee?” This was a freaking police department, coffee was basically unlimited.

“Yeah, well we are so…”

“Is this some kind of joke Marshall?”

“I’m serious!” He said throwing up his arms. “I knew you’d get upset.”

“Marshall.”

“Okay fine!” He dropped what she assumed was a cup—her eyes were currently fixated on the screen before her—and her hand reached out to take it. It was a box.

“What—” She averted her gaze to what her hand currently encased; a cardboard box covered in a white polka dots and a bow on top, a tag that connected to the corner by a string. _Happy birthday Inspector._

Her brows raised in surprise, and some bout of intrigue. “What’s this?” She grabbed the box and pried it open, ignoring the look on her colleague’s face which she would have to wipe off later. She reached into the box and pulled out an electric blue mug. “A mug… in my favorite color.” It was a typical gift she’d always received during her birthday, she didn’t know whether to act surprised or just smile and say thank you.

“Check the inside.”

She arched a brow at him but proceeded to look in anyway. Okay, this was surprising. “It’s… your face.”

“I know.” He leaned against her chair, looking pretty proud of himself. “Pretty neat right?”

She stared unimpressed, but his expression never wavered. “Thanks for the gift Marshall.” Her voice oozed with sarcasm, but he wasn’t easily fazed. “I will cherish it always.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Good. Now can we carry on with our work? Louis needs the data to take a quick analysis so we can meet up with the rest of the team.” She said, her voice taking on the embodiment of all business and no games as she rerouted her attention back to the computer screen. New report from St. Petersburg PD had been sent to neighboring Police Departments just a few hours ago. Another ‘Missing Persons’ case. Another figure skater stolen.

Yuri Plisetsky. Child Prodigy and youngest skater to ever have one the Grand Prix finals at last year’s Winter Olympic Season. Impressive TES in his short program, coming out second with a silver medal just after a Japanese figure skater.

He’d been taken just recently as stated in the report; found missing the previous day’s morning with no clue of his location or subsequent whereabouts. The Police Department at St. Petersburg had taken care of interviews and statements, making sure to do thorough patrols around their precincts. But she knew they weren’t going to find anything there. The least they could do was take care of investigations and tracking, but even those would be very unlikely seeing as how her PD have been hunting these guys down for years, seeing things and hearing unspeakable horrors from the _one_ victim they had by some miracle managed to find and revive. She could still see the horror in his eyes as she interviewed him. Haunted. Tormented. It had almost felt like she was experiencing the horrors herself.

  
_“N-no… stay away from me.”_

_“Don’t touch me… please. I’m sorry!”_

_“No! Don’t put me back in there, I’ll be good! I swear!!!”_

_“No you promised… she didn’t deserve to die… she didn’t deserve it…”_

  
Julio Antoine, a once bold figure of the snow-boarding world… reduced to nothing. The doctors had said with both constant mental and physical therapy, he would be back on his feet depending on how cooperative he turned out to be. But his snow-boarding days were most certainly over. Most torture victims were often suicidal due to the psychological and physical abuse they had to endure, just for them to come out broken. They were survivors, but they were still broken. Even trying to subtly coax him for any facial identification had him breaking down in racking sobs. Inez was glad Marshall hadn’t been there, she wasn’t sure how he would have handled it.

The video playing across the screen was taken by a security camera stationed by the figure skater’s neighbor to look over the neighborhood. On most cases, they weren’t so sloppy as to leave a running cam around, yet here she was, looking at recurring footage of a shadowy figure—face yet to be identified—sneaking into their apartment, and in twenty minutes, had come out carrying the unconscious petit blond over his shoulder and out of the camera’s periphery. That enough looked like the case of a normal everyday kidnapping; and she would have pegged it as such if the strangest thing didn’t happen right after. As soon as the abductor had left the view of the camera, the thing seemed to have blown a fuse and scrambled, so that whatever was supposed to happen after the recording didn’t happen, and what was left was a scrambling blank screen, like the feed had been cut off, but the video still played.

She had been trying to find some kind of meaning to it, but it seemed like she was going to meet the team with a no progress report.

“Hey, what’s this?” Marshall suddenly spoke up. She had forgotten he’d been looking through it with her.

“What?” She asked, giving space so he could tamper however he wanted.

Marshall only stretched lower so he could move the timeline backwards frame by frame. She watched intently, hoping to see whatever he saw as well in case she had actually missed something. But the screen still remained black and scrambled, not showing any part of the footage played before.

“Marshall I’m not seeing anything.” If he wanted to show her a missed clip, shouldn’t he have back tracked to thirty minutes ago? But she only sat in silence, hoping to make sense of her partner’s logic.

  
“Just wait.” He says, finally clicking one last time until it landed on a frame that hadn’t been part of the video and was instead an unseen clip that had been mixed among the static scrambles, and Marshall explained all this to her while she nodded, in awe.

“Nice. You might even qualify for a spot on the CIA with eyes as sharp as those.” She commented, smiling at him as she got up.

“Well,” A smug smirk plastered itself on his face, and by that she just knew her comment was a regrettable choice. “They don’t call me Eagle Eyes for nothing.”

The urge to correct him on how no one has ever called him such a name was suppressed as she had no time for playful banter with her colleague. The rest of the team was waiting for them and they needed to do as much work as they could before the NCIS was called in to assist.

“Hold on Eagle Eyes.” She stopped him with a hand to his chest as they were about walking out to the main office. Marshall halted abruptly, if not somewhat confused. “You still need to get me my coffee.”

“But what about—” He gestured to the room ahead, and she nodded in mock understanding.

“It’s my birthday remember?”

Marshall looked down at her—having a good three inches above her—and later sighed in submission, going the other way to head out the door. “I’ll check the coffee shop across the street.” He said drowsily but she smiled in appreciation.

“Thank you!”

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Yuri** _

  
The ground beneath him felt smooth and cold against his skin, an uncomfortable sensation that he knew he wasn’t supposed to feel upon waking up. Where was his warm, soft mattress? His fluffy array of pillows was missing, and he couldn’t feel Potya beside him or her soft purrs resonating against his chest were she was supposed to be. His phone which he kept beside him at all times was lost as well, and opening his eyes didn’t help his state of confusion, because everything was all white.

_What?_

In an abrupt sense of panic and mystification, he sat up, with enough speed to have given him whiplash were he not a trained figure skater.

But that didn’t matter now. Not here. Where the h**l was he?

The ground beneath him was a pure, unstained white, and the same could be said for the wall behind him. Everywhere else was an endless white abyss, like those dreams he seldom had when he was stuck in an infinite mindscape that seemed to go on for miles and miles. Except he actually wondered if this was a dream, because he could feel the cold against his skin through his clothes which were also ironically white.

He would say the only thing he could see that wasn’t white in the place was himself, but the clothes covered every inch of his skin, consisting of gloves in the collection. Then there was his hair, which was tied back in a way that he couldn’t note a single strand out of place, leaving it beyond his peripheral view.

In other words: What the fuck?!

Okay, this _had_ to be a dream, because there was nothing he could do to recall ever coming here. The last he could remember was going to sleep… then… that was pretty much it. He couldn’t remember much before that besides going to sleep. There were tiny memories of Otabek and Mila on the tip of his tongue, but it stopped past their names. He bet Mila was awake; she normally woke up first before he did so they could do their morning run. He just had to wait for her to come wake him up. Just wait for her. She was probably already waking up right now, already walking up to his room to tickle him awake. The annoying hag… he was going to claw her eyes off… or his cat would… anytime now…

But after what felt like an hour later—but was most likely 10 minutes—his mind was going crazy.

What the hell. Where was Mila? Why wasn’t he waking up yet?

His brain was telling him he wasn’t in a dream and was actually stuck in some endless white abyss, but he wanted to call bullshit. His only leverage was the wall and floor propping him up, other than that he was stuck here.

He made a move to get up, but was immediately jerked back by something encasing his wrist. A cuff, chained to the wall. And of fucking course it was white because why the hell not. He tested its strength, and he found it didn’t budge. It was sturdy, no doubt, and was also short enough so that he wasn’t able to stand.

“What the hell?!” He said to himself, or rather, he thinks he does. He didn’t hear it.

He repeats the thing again, says it louder, but for some insane reason he was deaf to his own words. He knew he was saying those things, he could feel his throat vibrating, so he knew he was talking. So… maybe he _was_ dreaming?

He groans soundlessly. If he was actually dreaming then he might be talking out loud to himself like an idiot, and Mila was probably there recording him on her phone. He says an “I will gut you with my knife shoes Mila.” In case he _was_ dreaming so the stupid hag would quit her nonsense and for goodness sake just wake him the fuck up.

Because he was damn tired of staring at white for the past something minutes (hours???) and would literally go insane if he stayed there for another non-specific amount of time.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
** _Mila_ **

Mila helped refill Potya’s bowl with milk after the grumpy thing had finished it a third time. The little demon had disappeared that very morning as well, only returning after the search party to discover she had done her rounds in Mila’s room while she was out. She’d need to replace her curtains and burn her favorite night pajamas because of the ‘present’ left behind after she was done playing in her room, but she would gladly trade her entire set of clothes to turn back time.

If not to make sure Yuri had never disappeared, and also to make sure she never had to look after Potya on her own again.

She wonders whether over-feeding the little demon would be enough to murder the thing. But maybe not since Yuri would just magically materialize out of thin air and probably murder her to avenge his cat’s ghost. Mila hopes that’s what actually happens.

She sighs, the initial shock and worry that had shrouded her when she hadn’t found Yuri in his room still somehow resided, unwelcoming and unneeded. The mystery behind it was unassuming, like that very morning…

  
_Mila had woken up on the couch, covered in her favorite purple blanket, the TV off and her bowl of snacks discarded. It was confusion that became her first reaction, not realizing when she had finished the movie, turned the TV off and then slept off covered and warm on the couch. Mila knew herself, knew she rarely slept on the couch. And even when she did, she was woken up by Yuri so she could go to her room._

_She smiled, suspecting the little scamp to have done all of this. He was such a softie even if he was bad at showing it (Or just didn’t want to) and this was going to be a perfect time to mock him for it._

_She got up and stretched, making her way to Yuri’s room and then knocking on it with a teasing smile on her face. “Oh Yura!” She sang, waiting for the subsequent groaning and ‘leave me alone Baba!’ accompanied with the faint sound of a pillow hitting the door that became Mila’s everyday good morning greeting. Silence was all that met her ears._

_“Yura?”_

_Nothing. Was he that asleep? He always woke up whenever she knocked on his door, maybe he was too tired. She should probably come back later._

_But what was the fun in that?_

_“Yuri!” Mila opened the door, peeking her head in with a jovial smile, her eyes roaming the room for that indignant annoyed face under a blond mop of bed head. But she saw nothing. “Yuri?” She went into the room, shutting the door behind her and approaching the bed. There was a lump of something under the covers that definitely had to be Yuri. “Yuri! You know you’re not to be scaring me like… that…”_

_The bed was empty, and what she had thought to be a sleeping 16 year old boy was a huge tiger plushy she was going to have to embarrass him about when she found him. She looked around the scattered room. Wherever he was._

_Turned out the house was empty apart from her. Not even Potya was around. Had Yuri run away? His phone hadn’t rung anywhere in the house when she had called it so it must been with him right? Only that she couldn’t think of any reason why he would ever want to run away considering he actually loved skating at the rink with them and didn’t have any reason to fly off on his own again. The last time he left he had taken a small luggage and left without a word, telling only Mila that he was going to drag the Old man back to Russia by the hair and then knock some sense into his d**n skull. He made her swear not to say a word._

_But now she couldn’t think of any reason why he would leave without telling her. Or without taking any of his belongings with him. Who would he even go to see at this hour and in such a hurry anyway? He hadn’t even left a note._

_She couldn’t think. She was worrying too much; she should probably do something else if he wasn’t picking up his phone. Like call Yakov and Lilia._

_They didn’t know either. And neither did the rest of the Russian team, or his grandpa or Otabek or anyone that Yuri knew on her contact list. Yuri was gone… and she didn’t know what to do. She checked her contacts for anyone else she hadn’t called yet, and surprisingly she found Viktor’s name. Mila wondered why it wasn’t the first she had called._

_But three hours and thirty minutes worth of crying and panicking and planning and searching later, there were no leads on Yuri. His phone couldn’t be tracked and she didn’t know why because the police were darn idiots and told her she was being irrational and Google play store apps were not sufficient enough to track it down properly…._

  
Mila felt the little demon crawl up onto the chair and on her lap, nuzzling against her comfortably. She resisted the urge to place her somewhere else, and instead scratched her fur. Potya began to purr, not an unwelcome feeling, in fact very much needed that Mila began to relax into it. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad kitty. Maybe she had only been expressing her displeasure over her master being gone, and Mila was only overreacting about her pajamas (which she still had to burn though).

An alert beeped from the laptop in front of her, and she leaned towards it to reply to the notification. A live video feed played before her, and Mila was met with the pretty and much needed face of Sara Crispino. “Hello Mila!”

“Hi Sara, is that a new poster of BTS?” She said, eyes trained on the background of her friend’s room.

“Oh?” She turned back to peek at the one she was referring to and then looked back at her with a fond smile. “Yes! It was a gift from one of my fans! Isn’t that cute?”

“Well, you wouldn’t imagine what I got from a fan last three weeks ago…” She says launching into a story of how she was coaxed into going on a dinner date with a little ten year old boy that was barely past her mid-section. The two had doubled over in laughter at the tale, especially when she got to the part about the boy’s overly obvious advances on her. Fortunately the thing had blown over after a week, but it wasn’t something she was going to forget.

“You know…” Mila says after coming back from getting herself a glass of pink lemonade. “I needed this.”

“I know.” Sara replied, her smile soft and understanding. “I thought it would be a good idea to cheer you up ever since I heard on the news.”

Of course she heard, she was pretty sure the majority of her friends knew as well. She was glad this one had the heart to lift her spirits and redirect her from her depressing thoughts. “Thank you.”

“No need.” She said, shaking her head. “I just thought you needed it is all.”

“You’re a good friend Sara.”

“I know.” The Italian girl replied, and very soon Mila could hear muffled yelling from the other side and Sara’s expression immediately turned exasperated. “I guess this is goodbye for now. I have to save my next door neighbor from Mickey or things are going to turn very bad…”

“Oh.” She hid her deflated countenance at the news of their conversation ending. “Don’t worry. How about later?”

“That sounds good.” She nodded, the sound of something crashing caused both girls to flinch. “Mickey, I already told you Freddy was coming to borrow my headphones!”

Something that sounded like a muffled “Why _you’re_ headphones? He can get his own!”

“Mine’s the only one that is wireless!” Sara sighs tiredly muttering something about murdering the twin, before turning her attention back to Mila. “Sorry, I have to resolve this… I swear you have no idea how annoying living with a brother is, I’d count you lucky Mila.” She laughed fondly. “But yeah, later?”

“Yes, later. Bye love!”

“Bye!” And soon the feed was off, and her smile immediately turned into a reminiscent frown. She didn’t have a brother, but she knew how having one was like and she missed that, she missed _him_ …

She folded her legs against her chest and rested her face on her knees; Potya had run off somewhere to do… something. She didn’t care. She just wanted to cry.

 

_Why the hell are you crying? I never pegged you as a baby, hag._

 

The voice of Yuri acting as some sort of sub sub-consciousness at the back of her mind sent her blinking her eyes so that more tears could come. She could imagine him there, scowling down at her and throwing her mild half-hearted insults while he got ice-cream and made her pirozhkies just because that had been his way of caring.

 

_Oh for fuck’s sake Mila, don’t act like I’m dead._

 

She chuckled a bit, not knowing why though, and blinked her eyes rapidly again, but this time to try and stop the flow of the tears. Her sub-conscious Yuri was right; she shouldn’t be treating the matter like he was found dead on the streets of St. Petersburg. But it didn’t stop her from missing him though.

 

_Tch. Such a sap._

 

He was right, she was a sap. But it was okay though, because they would find Yuri very soon. And they would find Yuuri’s friend as well too.

Because she had hope, and as long as everyone had hope, that was all that mattered.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had no idea how I was going to end it, so have this wonderful Pov of Mila and her and Sara interacting. I hope it was okay : ) !!! And if you have any thoughts on the antagonists side (Really it was a last minute thing) and even though it had like 9 paragraphs and one line, it’s essential to the plot.
> 
> Literally everything I write is essential to the plot.
> 
> Lots of love to SilverFae16, Hanairoh, Yuzu_ir and Parni1380 for leaving comments!!! (And a thousand thank you's to Yuzu_ir for reminding me to update <3<3) I'd actually been trying to get the next chap ready b4 I posted this one.
> 
> Okay, stay tuned for chapter 6, and I’d like your thoughts on what you’d like to see (It’s already pre-written but…) it’s fun to watch people guess!!! Who knows, maybe there’s a prize for the best guesser…


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not going to tell Viktor okay Makka?” He said to the dog, whose head had perked up at the call of his name, but otherwise still stayed on the floor. He patted the dog’s head, and then went to the bin and trashed the stupid piece of paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch your back...

Chapter 6: ‘What’s wrong boy?’

  
  


_**Mikhail** _

  
Mikhail sat at his desk, his two loyal men beside him as two video feeds played on the screen, one half showing a room tainted green with night vision feature, the other half pure white, contrast dimmed so it wasn’t so blinding.

The figure in the first half was lying down, probably sleeping, his muttering incomprehensible telling him he was having a bad dream. That or he was becoming delusional and was already breaking. He hadn’t been fed yet, and it was already 11:40 in the morning, he probably should… or not. Watching him cringe from stomach cramps was far more entertaining.

The figure in the second half though… had been yelling inconsistencies like he was going mad for the first two hours of day one in the white room, before breaking down and crying, then screaming again. It had been going on for six days now, sometimes he was screaming and calling out names, most of them were names of his friends he was sure. Other times he was curled in on himself, crying and cursing at nothing like a broken little cub, both of which was most likely a side effect of spending even a week in white isolation. His team of scientists often came to relay reports on his regressing condition. The hallucinations, the growing dementia, the dullness…

It was going to be fun weeks ahead for him. Fun indeed.

“Eenie, meanie, minie, mo…” His finger travelled from one half of the screen to the other. “What room today shall I go…?”

The little chocolate had been without light for at most another week after the one time he was brought out to entertain him, and he _was_ getting bored. Maybe it would be a good idea for him to entertain him again, maybe make the challenge harder…

Or, he could try the new one. The blond had reminded him of a feisty kitten before the effects of white torture caught up to him, the empty threats he had yelled out were reminiscent to a cub trying to roar like a lion. Cute, but pathetic. Mikhail had wanted to see it in person, test his limits. Try how many of those claws he could rip out before he broke completely…

The white room was no doubt breaking the boy for him without he himself having to even touch a single strand of his perfect blond hair. Despite the fact that he wasn’t having much fun, it was rather amusing to watch. It was like a documentary program, entertaining and so real…

He had to admit watching people break down on their own in isolation was very intriguing; the last person he’d done it with was left with a knife in the room. After two weeks she had killed herself out of desperation and madness. He put a finger to his chin. Maybe he should leave a small blade in the room and see what he does with it? Maybe he would cut himself until he saw blood? He’d heard of people who had done it. People who were so desperate to see a color other than white after weeks of long isolation.

The thought of it sent tingles down his spine.

That way he’d be hurting him by making him hurt himself. He made sure to write that down at the forefront of his mind for something he would try later.

“Sir.” Someone, his Head of medical staff, Dr. Nani came into the room looking almost distressed. She held a tablet to her hand, and she was no doubt watching the live feed of the boy from the dark room, _again_.

“What is it Doctor?” He replied bored, almost annoyed that she had pulled him from his thoughts. He already knew what she was here for; it was always about that boy. _His_ brown chocolate. _Every, damn time_.

 

_“Sir, it’s been two days. He needs water to live.”_

_“Sir, we need to reduce the dosage of the drugs. Anymore then he might overdose and suffer a relapse…”_

_“Sir, the boy may be experiencing withdrawals. I think it is advisable to offer him some sort of treatment or his body may decline and deject him…”_

 

Mikhail was fairly surprised he hadn’t disposed of her yet. Every time she came into his office it was about the boy this and the boy that. He never remembered her being this way to the other people that he had brought here. Then, she was dissociated and professional, curt with the athletes and was never so _freaking nagging_ … But he had to admit there were more perks to her than her flaws, and she was one of his most loyal associates, right after his two body guards. And she _was_ keeping him alive, even though they both knew he wasn’t going to let him live very long…

Those however, did not stop his eyebrow from giving that small irritated twitch as he watched her walk up to his desk. He wondered what she was going to say now.

“Mr. Ivakina, the boy needs sustenance.” _Called it._ “It has been an entirety of thirty-six hours. He will not be able to survive if he is deprived much longer.” Her voice was proficient and brisk as always, straight to the point but still holding a strong amount of respect and loyalty. It was one of the few traits he liked about her.

He sighed in reply, taking a while to spin his chair around before he was face to face with her again, her lips in a thin line, a clear indication of her fears of a negative response. He smiled inwardly at the little things that allowed people to be read so easily. “Dr. Nani, you’re looking fine this morning.” He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “Do tell me, are you normally this beautiful? Or do you have a pre-morning routine?” He loved the way her lips somehow became thinner from repressed annoyance at the reply that had nothing to do with her question.

“I do the normal thing everyone does when waking up sir. But really—”

“Oh I would love to hear it in detail.”

“Sir, the boy’s vitals—”

“Doctor Nani, I’m very sure you don’t want me sending you out of my office in time.” She stilled, her determination subdued but her resolve remained. He had her now. He tapped at the front of his desk. “Now come, sit. Let’s talk.” She agreed to it, although he could tell it was a resentful effort. As soon as he saw she was comfortable in her seat, he leaned back, the video feeds still playing on the screen and he knew she was trying her best not to pay attention to it. “I’ve been wondering how you’re research has been going. Have you found any other methods of psychologically scarring torture?” A finger went to his chin as his mind went somewhere else. “You know I need to restock my ‘Winter Collection’ and I need the required play tools so I know not to break my toys too early.” He remembered that snow boarder that he’d ended up killing that first day; it was truly a sad honest mistake due to ignorance. How would he have known his system couldn’t handle heat induced torture?

Dr. Nani seemed to have remembered the incident as well, and she sighed indifferently, bringing up her tablet and linking it to the screen on the wall in front of him so they could all see its contents. Unfortunately, he couldn’t watch the video feeds, but he could easily put them back if he so wished.

Nani had introduced some interesting prospects, like the idea of using phobia exploitation. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. And then using music as a source of torment was new, though the rest of the techniques he had used in the past would have to be kept because they worked best. Before, he had never really exploited using deterioration of the mind, his usual techniques involved getting physical. But after learning how compliant one’s mind could be after a few days of sleep deprivation, he figured changing his tactics this year wasn’t going to be a bad thing.

He’d given permission for food to finally be sent over to the boy, and soon the doctor had left him in peace.

He was glad the cub’s doctor wasn’t such a nag about his own subject, only giving reports on his well-being and its depletion, and never minded about his starvation or severity of his treatment. Although nothing painstakingly life threatening had occurred for days so he wasn’t going to pass out quick judgment yet.

Mikhail had put the camera feeds back on after Dr. Nani had left, an amused smile raising the corner of his lips at the sight of his toys relishing in their conditioning rooms.

Mikhail enjoyed it now, but he knew it would soon become boring after a while, which is why he was going to plot for his next victim very soon.

All he had to do was pick one.

 

Mikhail stood at the side of his office with the pool table, a dart in hand and a decision wheel containing the faces of qualified figure skaters—both men and women alike—arranged like the sectors of a pie chart. It was an exciting way to pick his next toy he’d decided, the anticipation on getting the one you wanted or not was equivalent to a child opening a Christmas present and hoping it was that play station you asked for. Thrilling… electrifying…

It was a simple process. The wheel was spun and the dart was thrown, whichever face it landed on was his knew guest. If it landed in between two people, then he would get the two people. No more, no less.

So as he threw the dart as the wheel spun, while blindfolded, he only hoped he got his favorite toy for himself this time. The best one off the shelf.

And if he didn’t?

Oh well, he could always try again the following week.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
**_Yuuri_ **

Practice time for the figure skaters were almost over, and for the third time in the week Viktor and Yuuri were the last to leave. He had finally been cleared by the doctor to continue skating, with the warning to avoid too much strain or falls on the ice; so they’d made use of their sweet time at the rink.

“Okay Yuuri let’s do it one more time okay?” Viktor called out from beyond the barriers, watching Yuuri as he let out a few tired breaths, then took a spot not too far out from Viktor’s view. They had already started putting together some of the elements of Yuuri’s SP together, and so far it was looking great. The jump compositions were still uncertain for now, and Yuuri was considering making some changes to the step sequence at the beginning. Not that the one Viktor had choreographed for him wasn’t _okay_ , in fact it was brilliant, but he felt the one he had been forming in his head displayed the message more profoundly. After all, his theme this year was: Strength. He’d changed it from ‘Found’ after his two friends went missing. He needed elements that portrayed it perfectly.

“So, what did you think?” He’d turned around to ask Viktor as he finished, but not before bumping into something considerably small. But then Yuuri had the feeling that inanimate objects never made noises like ‘ow!’ and he had to look down to discover he had accidentally hit a little girl, who looked seven and no smaller than his waist. He took notice of the other smaller skaters taking the rink, and soon he knew it was time to go. He’d helped the little girl up from the floor, and he couldn’t help but notice the pin adorning her red hair had his face on it.

_Which was weird because he doesn’t remember hearing about Yuuri Katsuki merchandise, and he was probably mistaking the person on the pin to be someone else because there was no way that was him. Right?_

“Yuuri Katsuki!” The red head girl called out his name in surprised enthusiasm, her smile widened to reveal a gap in her teeth which was admittedly very cute. “You’re on my pin!” She pointed to the one on her head, the one he had noticed at first. _So maybe it was him_.

“Oh, that’s cool—” He was saying but the yelling of a lady at the other side of the rink cut him off. She was surrounded by other little children in skates, and they were all looking at her, waiting for her to join them. The lady was speaking stern Russian—which he barely understood—while the other kids giggled, undoubtedly at her, causing the red head to blush.

“I’m going to skate now.” She pointed back with her thumb, impressively skating backwards as she waved. “Bye!”

He waved back at the girl, watching her join the others while he turned, a smile on his face that didn’t go unnoticed by Viktor as he left the rink.

 

“I see you’ve met a fan Yuuri.” Viktor says as they walk home through the streets under the dimming afternoon sky. Despite the condition of the day, the city of Pita was still really cold, so they had taken the short cut to their street.

“Yeah,” He nodded. “She even had a hair pin with my face on it.”

“I didn’t know you had merchandise.”

“Well neither did I.” He said, kicking a rock that was in his path absent mindedly. “Maybe she made it herself, or had some help…”

“Shows how enthusiastic your fans are.” Viktor said, a finger to his chin as an amusing thought enters his mind. “Hey maybe you can have your own ‘Yuri’s Angels’. Except maybe we would call it ‘Yuuri’s Katsudons’ and I’ll be the head of the fan club.”

Yuuri laughed at such a silly idea, the image of a group of over-enthusiastic girls carrying a poster of him with pig ears had him feeling slightly unsettled. “You’re ridiculous Vitya.” He says, shaking his head.

The two had returned to their apartment sooner than normal and the couple were suddenly greeted by a happy and enthusiastic Makkachin as they came in through the door of the apartment. Viktor offered to set up the things for dinner after his shower and Yuuri was left alone with Makkachin, who had suddenly began pulling on his sleeve after the older had left to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong boy?” He frowned in confusion, not sure of the animal’s intentions but trusting him anyway as he was led to the sitting room.

Makkachin had stopped some centimeters away from the coffee table, where a small white envelope rested directly in the middle. “What’s this?” He asked no one in particular, reaching for the paper packet and feeling for its contents before opening it. Makkachin lay on the floor, watching idly as he brought out a neatly folded piece of paper. Was it fan mail? He couldn’t exactly tell. The envelope was blank and didn’t state directly who the recipient was supposed to be. But it had ended up in their home, somehow getting on their coffee table (Unless Makkachin had put it there which he highly doubted), so it had to be for either of them.

Should he wait for Viktor before reading it?

The faint sounds of the shower and Viktor’s humming reached his ears, and he had to ponder on whether Viktor had left it himself as some sort of adorably romantic surprise. Otherwise why would Makkachin be so adamant about letting Yuuri see it in the first place?

_Or maybe you should just open the letter._

He mentally nodded, accepting the fact that he didn’t need to ask himself all these questions when the truth was literally in his hands.

Yuuri carefully pried it open, careful not to squeeze, and began reading the words on the script.

Funny enough, there were only three.

  
_Watch your back._

  
Okay that didn’t seem like Viktor trying to send him adorably romantic love letters or something a fan would have sent to him. He was confused for a moment, flipping the paper so that he could check both sides on whether he’d missed something, because now there were even more questions to be added to the fray.

 _Watch my back?_ What’s that even supposed to mean? Yuuri quickly turned his head to look backwards in case he was actually supposed to watch his own back, but then found nothing. He looked to Makkachin, as if he might’ve had any explanations of some kind, but he was busy chewing at one of Yuuri’s slippers and didn’t seem to be paying attention to what his master was doing anymore.

He looked at the letter again. _Watch your back_. He never knew how confusing three words could be, even more so that the sender hadn’t left their name or address or even a small hint at their identity. Just three words, because that made sense. It made a lot of sense.

Yuuri frowned at it, folded it up and put it back into the folder. Maybe he was being super paranoid now. Two important people in his life had gone missing in the span of two weeks, now three weeks later and they still haven’t been found. Of course he was going to be distrusting of a mysterious piece of paper that apparently appeared out of nowhere and onto his coffee table at 3 in the freaking afternoon. Containing three inexplicable words from an anonymous writer that didn’t even leave a hint at what they were supposed to mean because it made sense. It made a lot of sense.

Maybe he shouldn’t even bother telling Viktor about it. He didn’t need the mystery and confusion the letter would bring him. They needed to be at their best and strongest, just like Viktor had said, and so the thing wasn’t important. If Viktor saw it he would’ve done the same, hence the decision had been made.

“We’re not going to tell Viktor okay Makka?” He said to the dog, whose head had perked up at the call of his name, but otherwise still stayed on the floor. He patted the dog’s head, and then went to the bin and trashed the stupid piece of paper.

No Letter, no problem.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

 

_**Inez** _

_At Moscow PD…_

“So… what’ve we got?”

“Okay Lou,” Inez gestured for her department’s resident genius and tech expert to start up the screen, a big display unit that took up a good portion of the wall in front of them, which was also linked directly to the tablet in Louis’ hand.

The NCIS had sent two agents that had flown in just the previous day and had in no time contacted the PD on their arrival and begun their assist.

They seemed well equipped to help, and Inez had a feeling that this was going to be the year they finally took down the terrorist organization that had been plaguing her them for years. Louise had the video footage of Yuri Plisetsky being home-snatched on the screen, fast-forwarding to the part that Marshall had pointed out for her before.

On the screen, a two second paused clip of the kidnapper’s face turning visibly in a three-quarter direction towards the camera as he drove away in a car. The car window was about to close just as he was taking off in the black vehicle, identified as a Cadillac CTS-V, one of the best getaway cars known to exist this day. And a very expensive one at that. Unfortunately they couldn’t check for a license plate because the hidden clip was barely three seconds lock so they were lucky enough to get the shot of the culprit.

“Look familiar Rick?” The dark skinned American lady asked, piercing eyes locked on the screen as it seemed like her mind was turning gears. Rick, her partner also seemed to be thinking, but soon he was asking for Lou’s tab and tapping away at several windows.

The screen lit up with a graphic ID card with the very picture of their guy with his name and profile. A dirty-blond Inez knew from her time hunting down criminals in Moscow, except this guy had been the _victim_.

“Misha Gennadi.” She began before agent Rick could even begin his own criminal overview. “I know him. This guy doesn’t have a single criminal record on him last time I checked, what is he doing kidnapping skaters from their houses?”

“Well Officer Carpal, it seems you may need to update your people profile, because just last year he’d been working overseas at Texas for a local drug ring.” The dark skinned lady, agent Mac she remembered hearing, conveyed. “He was put in American prison because apparently his citizenship was legit and otherwise wasn’t shipped back to his original state.”

“Explains why I was unable to contact him for some time.” She confessed. Misha had been a college student whose life had come crashing down when his family had been brutally murdered in a hostage situation at a restaurant. She had helped in the investigation of the case, and then caught the criminal within three weeks. She had been in association with him for some time after that, but had later lost touch with him after he apparently moved abroad later on. It seems like he had returned. She explained this to them as they made more insights and gave more views on him.

She still wondered why the kid had gotten himself into these kinds of things.

“Officer, you seem to have had such a good connection with him.” Rick says, eyes now trained on her while she still stared at the screen, the photo of that broken boy from just less than a year ago. “Any ideas on where he might be currently residing?”

Inez thought for a moment. “I know of the apartment here in Moscow he’d been sharing with a roommate while he was still in University but…” She ransacked her memories for any more locations of what Misha had called a home. “And there’s his old family home but that’s about it. All his relatives don’t live in Russia except his grandfather, but _he’s_ staying in a retirement home.”

“So we search his old family home and… you say he has a roommate?”

“Yes.” The ID of the kid she was about to speak on appeared on the screen. “Alex Delia-Lee. He’s currently working at a rink in St. Petersburg, so his old apartment must be inhabited by someone else already.”

“Hey…” Louis began. “Isn’t it possible that both of them are still in acquaintance? I mean, they both moved to the same city.”

“It would make sense.” Mac says. “Then we’d have to go to St. Petersburg to investigate.”

“So, it’s a plan.” Inez states more than asks, already knowing she’s going to come with them wanted or not. It seems like the glint in her eyes sent the message already as the NCIS agents nod in affirmation.

“It’s a plan.”

 

Inez sat quietly at her desk, reviewing some documents she had to sign for local menial issues. The paper work wasn’t very heavy, but she was getting characteristically bored, so she was glad when her partner had walked up to her at their shared duo desk space. Maybe he could be able to help complete it so she could move on to more significant things, like the documents involving the investigation she was going to carry out in another city.

“So you’re going to Pita huh?” His tone sounded less than jovial; although it was something she chose not to give much thought to as he was sometimes not always on a happy note.

“Yeah.” She looked up from her desk to him, and he was _glaring_ at her. Not in a hateful manner, but somehow displaying to her hurt and betrayal. “Something wrong Marshall?”

“No, you’re free to carry out investigations whenever and wherever you want without telling me.” Okay so something _was_ wrong.

“I’m sorry? Look, if you want to aid in this you can. I’m not holding you back.” She says calmly, understanding where his frustrations are coming from. “But you’re not going to stop me. And besides, you know why _else_ I want to go there.”

“Yeah, I know.” His tone is softer this time, and he almost looks regretful at getting so annoyed earlier. “It’s just… _he’s_ going to be there.”

“I know that Marshall, but I think I can handle him.” Inez almost rolls her eyes at her partner. He was always such a worry wart. “And you know he won’t try anything funny, not while I’m around he won’t.”

“That’s okay, but that’s only cuz he’s y—”

The landline on her desk blared with an incoming call which she had to take, and then gave Marshall a signal relaying that she would get back to him later.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Yuuri** _

  
Yuuri had been paranoid all morning, and Viktor was getting suspicious.

He’d blamed it on the letter, the mysterious one he received just a day ago which he and Makka decided to hide from him. Ever since leaving their home for a morning run, Yuuri had kept on looking over his shoulder like someone was following him, eyes trained on his environment like he was looking for someone but didn’t know who.

He found a sense of security while at the rink as well, but something still kept on niggling at the back of his mind, a constant fear disturbing his consciousness enough to almost make him flub his jump. The doctor had said to go easy on the jumps; he can’t have any more accidents. Not now.

“Yuuri, you okay?” Viktor was still suspicious of his behavior, but he was glad he wasn’t questioned about it.

“I’m fine, just a little distracted.” He explains, not completely lying to him but not telling him the whole truth either. Viktor had hummed before going back to practice on his LP while Yuuri went to the stands for a refreshing bottle of water.

_Watch your back._

Like a chilling conundrum it whispers at the back of his mind, the feeling of eminent danger turning his stomach and troubling his nerves. He looked back for probably the twentieth time that day, eyes scoping the ice rink behind him. A few kids from before were using the other side of the rink. Team Russia—or what was left of it—were there, skating albeit distractedly, Viktor was there as well, eyes lost in a distant memory as he skated backwards in circles.

A chill passed over him. Someone was watching him, or watching all of them. He just didn’t know exactly who…

A hand touched his shoulder, and upon reflex he jerked back, hands raised in defense against the unknown. Yuuri’s heart beat fast as he observed the somewhat confused perpetrator, a red-headed, green eyed man who seemingly appeared familiar.

“You…” From the restaurant. The guy Yuuri had been glaring daggers and holes at three weeks back the day after Phichit’s disappearance. What was he doing here? “You’re that waiter.” He says with a naturally polite smile. There was no sense in being so mistrusting when he hadn’t posed as a threat. Yet.

“Yeah…” The waiter smiled as well, looking fondly at the skaters on the ice. He was currently in casual clothes, and once again he pondered what he was doing there. “You’re Yuuri Katsuki right? I know someone that’s a great fan.”

“Okay, that’s cool I guess.” Yuuri was still a bit anxious on how to respond to his fans, especially the ones that fell in the adolescence category. He needed to ask Viktor for advice sooner or later when he had the time and correct state of mind.

But the waiter—he should really ask for his name—seemed to have understood that somehow, and asked for a photo for his friend. “Name’s Lev.” He finally said, not needing to ask him after all.

“Okay,” Yuuri nodded. He really needed to get back on the ice. He and Viktor agreed to go home early so they could take Makkachin to the vet for his monthly check-up. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Depends on whether or not I’ll be coming back.”

“Oh, right.”

Yet, as Yuuri skated back, he couldn’t still get rid of the feeling in his gut. A feeling that in fact, seemed to may have intensified.

_Watch your back._

The words whispered to him once more as he looked back at Lev at the stands, staring at the people skating on the ice with precision and a furtive glimmer in his eyes. And for a single moment he felt a little closure at what the phrase in the anonymous letter had implied, even though he hardly knew why.

Though he knew who.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was supposed to be longer than this but… whatever. Once again thanks to everyone reading and loving my story! (I honestly didn’t think people would love it this much. This was really just an excuse to put one of my kinks online—yes I’m a sucker for crazy OC’s and hurt and crime scenes). But I’m glad ya’ll are liking it???
> 
> And as for the antagonist (which we all hate) I have to admit writing him was a bit… interesting? I’ve read and watched fictional villains before and writing one for myself allowed me to explore the mind of the typical egotistical sadist (And yes it crept me the hell out). Hopefully he wasn’t too much, because I have no idea how to tone him down at all…
> 
> Anyway I’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter and what you’re expecting for the next! And please leave comments and Kudos and subscribe and share and all that junk for popularity and views!!! (I update according to views and inspiration)
> 
> Thank you to Hanairoh, Yuzu_ir, Parni1380 and Ayy for leaving comments on my last chapter!
> 
> And sorry if updates become slow (I promise I’m not going to abandon this fic!) but there’s a lot going on in my life right now and it’s draining my inspiration sort of, but be sure to keep up!
> 
> Thanks again!!! Next chap might be out soon.


	7. 'It's Yurio..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was tired of waiting for help that wouldn’t come. He didn’t want to live in this hell anymore. He didn’t want to live at all.
> 
> He wanted to end it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit anxious about posting this chapter tbh. (If you must know I'm very self-conscious and sensitive on my writing abilities) But enough said about me!!!
> 
> I apologize if the first POV doesn’t make much sense (though I tried to make it as coherent as I could) but we ARE exploring the point of view of a person slowly losing their sanity (I had to watch a ton of YouTube videos and read A LOT of websites on the effects of white torture). And as for those who might have questions about this fic some answers are in the notes below. And if you haven’t been paying attention to the storyline in the previous chapters, then there might be some things you might not understand. Anyway, thank you! And enjoy.
> 
> Quick note: Warnings of suicidal thoughts.

  
Chapter 7: ‘It’s Yurio…’

 

  
_**Yuri** _

 

His mind was gone.

Floating in a sea of a never ending void, lost among indistinguishable memories hovering adrift, accompanied by the feeling of numbing loneliness.

In retrospect, he was going bat shit crazy. Or at least, that’s how Yuri preferred to put it. He’d never felt like this before, detached from himself that he could barely think straight. Or think at all.

It was scary.

Not hearing. Drying out. Hallucinating.

Forgetting.

His hand was shaking again; he could feel it, even though it wasn’t cold. He considered it being a fever of sorts, or maybe… maybe it was something else. Maybe he was going crazy again, maybe… because the tall man with pink hair was there again, staring at him from the corner, speaking words he couldn’t hear.

He yells at it, him, to shut up. Or he mouths the words. He’s not sure which anymore, but the man’s lips cease to move and when Yuri blinks again, he’s not there. Just like before. He’s hallucinating.

The floor was cold. He lies down on it because he’s tired of feeling hot, his hands still shiver, and are numb when he brings them together. He remembers once when the floor was lava. He remembers it burning, hurting. The scalding heat. He remembers feeling…pain, and then nothing, like he’d been dreaming.

The voice—he doesn’t remember who it belongs to—the voice though, it whispers into his ears, and he listens. It’s the only thing he can hear in this lonely void.

  
_“Yura… look…”_

  
He looks. He doesn’t know how he knows the direction The voice speaks of, but he looks. And there they were, one of a pair of skates. The blades glistening in an unseen light source, black, reflective. Sharp. _Like his knife shoes_.

  
_“Go to it…”_

  
They had long since removed his chain, he didn’t know how. But he woke up and saw it gone. Or maybe it was never there to begin with. Maybe he had been hallucinating from the start…

  
_“Go to it…”_

  
The voice didn’t have a specific sound per se; it was just a light breathy whisper. It might have originated from his dreams, or not. Or it was the animated cat he pretended was his imaginary friend when he was five. He didn’t remember her name, but her voice was… it was…

He couldn’t remember that either.

Yuri blinked, convinced the skates were not real. However, they were still there even after he had rubbed his eyes and blinked again. _They’re real?_

  
_“Go…”_

  
He went.

Crawling like a curious animal towards it, his movements conscious so that the only colored thing to appear in forever didn’t suddenly disappear. He was tired of looking at white. The walls were white; the ceiling was white, the floors, the food, his clothes, his skin…

The feeling of leather against his now gloveless finger sent a jolt of something—excitement?—through his body. Some kind of thrill he hadn’t felt in a long time…

  
_“Grandpa, I did good right?”_

_“You were the best one out there Yuratchka.”_

_“Really? I’ll do even better tomorrow. You’ll watch?”_

_“Always Yura.”_

  
Something wet dropped down his cheek, once. Then twice. Before it continued like a stream from his eyes, an uncontrollable leak.

He hated thinking about them. About him. His Dedushka. His Agape.

It made him cry.

  
_“… So why don’t you tell me what Agape means to you?!”_

_“It’s an emotion so why waste time trying to put it into words?_

_“Right. When you skate it’s about what you feel not what you think. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Now, on to the temple!”_

_“The temple?!” Stupid old man with his stupid temple and his stupid Agape. What does unconditional love have to do with anything anyway…_

  
It was real.

The black, the leather, the lace. The blades.

The leather was white no doubt, but the blades. They were black. They were reflective, and for the first time in a long time he got to view his own reflection. _Blond, green, white_. His hand went to his face, the tears still coming and not stopping. He wanted them to stop.

He was having a headache.

Yuri turned the skate over to look at it, examine it, his full concentration on how black it looked. How new it smelt. How sharp it was. He tested the sharpness against the wall, and a strange, disturbing, vibrating noise echoed in his ears. He blinked rapidly. _Strange_. He hadn’t been able to hear anything since he woke up here.

He knocked his fist against the wall, whistled, yelled. Nothing.

He tried the skate, and there it was again. Noise.

Sound.

He liked it.

But after what must have been several hours, the inside of his ears began to get hot, like fire or molten lava pouring into his ears. It _hurt_. So he stopped.

The walls and floor remained impeccably pure and unscathed even after all that scratching. He was expecting white paint to peel off or something, but that never happened. Nothing good ever happened there.

It was just him and the white skate, and the black, sharp blades.

  
_“Use it…”_

  
Use it how? There wasn’t any ice. He couldn’t skate with only one boot.

  
_‘Use the blade…’_

  
The blade? He looked at it, and there it was again, his face. His blonde hair, and green eyes, and white… white face… He still didn’t know how he was going to use it. He looked intently at the skate like the answers were written somewhere on it. And the thing must've clicked, because it was so clear to him now.

  
_‘Use the blade… on yourself’_

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Phichit** _

  
Phichit was tired.

Tired of falling asleep. Tired of feeling hot and cold… of feeling at all.

Tired of feeling like his body was infested with roaches, his nails scratching at his arms until blood came, re-opening old wounds.

Tired of hearing music that came from nowhere, banging his head against the wall to make the sounds of bag pipes and trumpets and acoustic guitars go away.

Tired of seeing things that weren’t there, skeletons, people, ghosts… knives… No one even came to see him anymore. The door never opened, but he was never hungry. Phichit thinks it had to do with the tube injected into his hand, but he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think anymore.

He was just tired.

He was tired of waiting for help that wouldn’t come. He didn’t want to live in this hell anymore. He didn’t want to live at all.

He wanted to end it.

His hand felt for the needle in his other hand, considering removing it. Using it.

Yuuri would understand. His family would understand why he had to do it. It was better this way. Even if they were to save him now, he was already broken. No one would want him anyway, he was damaged goods, collateral wreckage. A liability. There was no saving him… he would always be trapped in the dark room…

He had long since run out of tears to cry, so he had none to shed now. Not as he feebly pulled out the needle from his hand, the feeling of it exiting his vein stinging his skin.

It didn’t matter though, not anymore.

As soon as he removed it, his body impossibly felt weaker than before, and he could feel himself losing consciousness again. He struggled to keep his eyes open. If he was going to die it would be of his own doing…

But his fingers were going numb now; he could feel when the thing slipped from his hand, his body dropping to the floor, his eyes closing.

And then nothing…

 

The first thing he saw when he woke up was light.

It was a blinding light, but there was something almost serene about it, greeting his eyes with a dull ache. Eyelids half closing as response to stimuli.

 

_Was he dead?_

  
He didn’t know, and wasn’t sure. Though he could still feel; the sting against his hand, cold biting his skin, icy rubbery fingers brushing against his face and arms… and then it hit him. Was the afterlife supposed to smell like a hospital?

Phichit made a move to sit up, but was then forcefully shoved back down by a hand. His head hitting soft _so very soft_ pillows on top of what had to be the comfiest bed he’d ever felt. But pushing that aside… where was he?

  
_In a hospital you idiot._

  
A hospital. Phichit wanted to cry, he’d failed. He couldn’t do anything right could he? He literally couldn’t skate to save his own life, and now he was a failure at taking it too. His friends and family would be so disappointed.

After they’d fix him up they were most likely going to put him back in there, take some precautionary measures so he wouldn’t try killing himself again. Leave him to suffer and continue his unfulfilling journey to madness.

The cold rubber hands had no sooner stopped ghosting over his skin, and the light shining rays into his eyes dimmed to a dull glow. His eyes faced the ceiling now, gaze fixated on the smooth white of the surface, the small blemishes that he wouldn’t have noticed before are now as clear to him as the day. The sound of feet shuffling to and fro and away sounded in his ears, but he was numb to them. Numb to everything that wasn’t his thoughts, his fears.

“Leave us.” A voice, a really familiar voice says, and the shuffling of feet fades away. Fades until it is ceased by the click of a door shutting. The only footsteps he hears now are the light _click-clacks_ of flat heeled loafers against the floor, the scent of recognizable cologne hits his nose and Phichit is afraid to look from the ceiling, not wanting to look into the cold eyes of his tormentor.

It was an inevitable feat, an inescapable nightmare he’d stopped wishing to escape from. Cool, calloused hands touched his cheek and oh so gently nudged it so he was turning left, right into the gaze of the man. Surprisingly though, he wasn’t scared of that, he just felt numb. Lifeless. He had long since lost the will to live. He wouldn’t care if he were to be stabbed in the heart at that very moment, so far he wasn’t in his clutches anymore.

“So, you tried to commit suicide.”

 _And the award goes to…_ Well of course he did! Who wouldn’t have tried to if they were given the chance in those conditions? A small voice whispered to him that killing yourself was never an option, but he called bullshit.

“Unfortunately for you _Malen’kiy_ we can’t have you do that.” He said, shaking his head like he was correcting a toddler. “Not yet at least. You see, I still need to restock my collection.” Phichit doesn’t want to know what that means. “And if one of my toys decide to go bad, then that will be very terrible for me you know?”

He blinked, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

The man seemed to have guessed his thoughts because soon words were flying out of his mouth. “And, also bad for your friend…”

“M-my… friend?” What was he trying to say here? Did he have one of his friends? Or maybe it was all of them. “W-what are you saying?” His voice was croaky, but audible enough to be able to hear himself. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to get a reply, and the man just stood up, leaving to go through the doors of the ward he was in.

“Get better little one…” Was all he had said before he was left alone.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Mikhail** _

“Has the new cargo arrived?” He asked one of his body guards who kept tabs on the importation and exportation of ‘goods’ in and out of the organization, and he responded with an affirmative nod. “Good. Call doctor Nani to my office. Tell her I need the athlete’s profile again.”

“Yes sir.” He nodded and walked away to follow his orders.

Mikhail felt exhilarated at the thought of another person to break again, another toy to play with. He was almost glad he’d never had this feeling as a child, no matter how exciting. They’d never have felt this refreshing now. However those days were gone and over. Done and dealt with. He could have and take whatever he wanted now, and nothing could stop him…

His little chocolate was exhausting, breaking and drying out. Soon he’d have to go, and someone else would have to take his place. But beforehand, he had a few matters he needed to deal with.

“You.” He pointed to bodyguard #2, Hugo. “Get me Lev Galkin on the phone. I need to make sure what I hear of the NCIS in Pita is true.”

That one merely nodded, ever a man of few words, and then walked away, leaving him alone as he walked to his office.

If the news that his main HQ was going to be combed, it was time to start changing tactics.

Good thing he was always prepared.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Inez** _

  
“Did he spill?”

“Like a can of beans.”

They had just apprehended their main suspect’s ally, the boy that worked at the local rink in Pita. And they didn’t even have to cause a scene.

The boy, Alex Delia-Lee had been on his way to open the rink for usage that very day at around 5: 30 in the morning. Alex had been the only one around, except for a certain skater she recognized that had been jogging by the rink and happened to see what was happening.

The boy had tried escaping, albeit in vain as he was already surrounded by the officers and agents alike and ended up brought in for brutal interrogation. He’d cracked like an egg under the pressure, brought on by the threat of imprisonment if he withheld information from them seeing as it was obstruction of justice. The force couldn’t exactly take him to jail yet, because other than knowing what his friend was up to, he’d been living his life like every other legal law-abiding citizen. Though they were still investigating.

The PD at St. Petersburg had been great help too, offering up information they had gathered from recent disappearances and also those associated with the victims.

“So according to him we found that his friend Misha could be living around here.” A geographical map displaying St. Petersburg on the screen zoomed in on the North side, a location hidden among a site of trees and snow. “He’s detached from socialization, like some sociopath.”

“That’s what they are.” Agent Mac nodded, glaring at the screen. “Only people like that would ever think stealing others from their lives was a good idea.”

“You don’t know him.” Inez says defensively. “There has to be some reason he’s doing this. Maybe he’s being threatened.”

“Maybe.” Mac’s partner, Rick replies. “But he’s still gonna be brought down whether he wants to or not.”

Inez sighs, knowing they were right. If they wanted to bring down this society of people, this wretched organization, then emotions weren’t going to get in the way. Not ever. “Alright. Let’s move.”

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Mila** _

 

 _Why are the police by the rink?_ Was the first thought floating through her head as she jogged by, slowing down her pace so she could get a better view of whatever the heck was going on.

It was one of the staff she recognized as Alex, a nice kid who worked at the counter on weekdays. What were they doing with him? She stopped her jogging, catching a small breath before going over to question why such an innocent kid was being handcuffed and put in the back of a police car.

The officers of course didn’t tell her anything, and only told her to ‘Back off ma’am, we’re searching the area until it’s cleared for you to pass.’ And then shooed her out of _her team’s_ rink. The nerve!

Mila only ended up resuming her run in annoyance while the police rummaged through the area like a bunch of irritating ants. They were supposed to be looking for Yuri, not arresting innocent rink staff. Did no one in that damn department know how to do their jobs right?

The logical part of her brain told her that they were doing their jobs and should be happy they haven’t even dropped the case since there hadn’t been any leads in days. And that she was also being unreasonable in pestering them on finding him but she shoved that one down the hole because Mila was a human being and was allowed to worry.

 

“So is the rink open or not?”  
  
“It is.” Mila explains to Georgi as they stood feet away from the rink, only 9 minutes before it would be finally opened. “But the police are still there. I honestly don’t know what they’re expecting to find though…”

“Maybe young Alex has something to do with Yuri’s disappearance.” He ponders, putting a finger to his chin.

Mila scoffs in reply and only folds her hands, not wanting to dwell much on the topic at the moment. She just wanted to skate, so she waited impatiently as the police left the area, and people who had lingered before to watch the commotion continued on with their lives. Viktor and Yuuri usually came only several minutes or hours after the rink opened on the days they practiced, so it was just her and the other skaters who attended the rink that were present.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Inez** _

They’d used vehicle transport to get to the secluded home, other vehicles included in case he tried to make a run for it, several officers and agents surrounded the area, and they were ready to take the kidnapper in.

Except he wasn’t there.

They’d checked all the rooms in the scanty two floored house, the basement and the attic, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“Where the hell could he be?” Mac questioned, coming out of the house after a second checking. Inez thought the same thing. Surely the kid hadn’t been lying about his friend’s position? She was pretty sure she’d made it clear that prison conditions were not very hospitable for younglings like him. And had also ensured him his family would be safe and no one would come after them as long as the police were there, except he was afraid for something else…?

Agent Mac’s tone soon intensified as she spoke into the comms Inez had also been linked to, except she and her NCIS partner had private links to themselves when they needed. “What’s up?” She asked, following her to her car as they ran in desperate hurry.

“Rick found the kid, Misha, up ahead on a road heading south. Currently on a high speed car chase.” She ran through, starting the engine and moving the car through the spacious bits of the woods. Inez nodded in response at the news, gun ready in hand in case there was a shoot-out on the road.

  
It turns out there _was_ a shoot-out, and she’d ended up having to burst one of the wheels of his high speed motorcycle. Thankfully, there wasn’t an accident.

“Misha Gennadi.” Inez says, getting behind the boy and forcing his hands behind him as he was cuffed. “You are under arrest for the kidnapping of a minor from their home. You’re coming with us.”

After taking him in and after a sub-par interrogation which they would now have to take again with Misha’s lawyer (After he so vehemently demanded for them) later on, Inez was sat in her hotel room at 1:00 in the afternoon, chatting with her partner who had decided to stay back in Moscow because of an investigation he was leading on a missing priceless artifact. Inez had been upset that he wasn’t able to come with her, but like she, Marshall also had a responsibility to his city.

“So, how’s it going?” She asked, sitting on a couch with a Coca-Cola in hand.

“The investigation? Pretty good. Found some leads… but enough said about me.” Marshall says with a wave of his hand. “How’s yours going?”

“We’ve found Misha. Took him in for interrogation.” Inez explains, looking back at a memory. “He’s still as stubborn as when he was in college. He’s demanding for a lawyer, and their bringing him in tomorrow hopefully.” A sip from her bottle. “Every moment we wait they may be making their next move… Well, at least it’s progress. But I was hoping for some more action than a high speed chase shoot-out.”

“At least you’re not stuck looking at fingerprints all day.” He jokes, Inez knowing full well her partner respects all fields of crime fighters and investigators alike. “So what’re you doing now?”

Inez drops her half-finished bottle of diet Coke, looking at the time on her phone. “For now, just waiting for something to come up. Hopefully now that the kid’s kidnapper’s been caught there won’t be bad news for weeks. Although I am going to make a stop at a local ice rink.”

Marshall looks confused for a moment, rubbing the back of his head and slightly tousling his short brown locks. “The ice rink…? Why would you—oh!!!” It finally clicks, and she doesn’t hide her excited grin. It’s been _years_.

Her partner grins at well, knowing the source of her excitement. “The lil thing must be all grown up now. Been years since I’ve seen her.”

“I’ll tell her you said hi.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He says, still playful, when an indignant frown takes its place on his face. “Wait… is _he_ going to be there?”

“Well if he is I can’t avoid him.”

“But he’s—”

“I know, I know.” She sighs. “But I’m still going.” Inez says this with a firm tone, indirectly stating that she wasn’t going to let his overprotectiveness get in the way of her goals.

Marshall sighs as well, like a tired old man. “Okay, fine. But be careful.”

She nods, even if he couldn’t see it. “I will.” And she ends the call.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Yuuri** _

When Yuuri had arrived at the rink it was business as usual, skates gliding across the ice and light scraping noises as people attempted jumps and moves, a few conversing, the kids keeping to themselves at their side of the rink so they could let the competitors practice.

Yuuri had ended up arriving late in the early afternoon, having to take care of Viktor after he’d woken up with a fever and told him to rest at home for a while. He had been reluctant to be left alone at first, wanting to spend a while watching his Yuuri skate, but when Yuuri said no, he meant it. Even if it meant Viktor’s hurt pout will forever be ingrained in his brain.

He had aided some, getting a bit bored of skating to the same thing for over an hour and helped some strayed untrained children learn skating basics. There was that little red-headed girl in pig tails again. The one he’d been seeing around the rink since several weeks ago. The one that had a hairpin of him. She was really good, especially for a girl her age, and could already do an impressive single flip and sit spin. He’d only started learning the basic moves when he’d turned eleven.

“So you’re seven?” He asked her as he took a break to gulp down some water. The girl nodded happily, but shyly looked down to play with her gloves. “Hey, can you tell me your name?—if you mind, I mean.”

She looked up and smiled brightly. “Sure! It’s Victoria. But my friends call me Tori.” Victoria says this with an almost dramatic twirl, being careful not to fall on the ice as she stuck her arms out. Yuuri laughed lightly.

And suddenly, like her attention shifted without warning, she was speeding over to the exit of the rink, yelling out a “Mommy!” While her little black skates didn’t seem to be stopping. Yuuri feared she would tumble to the ice from the uncontrolled speed, but was no sooner surprised when an older looking blonde lady shot out onto the ice—without skates—and caught her. Raising and spinning the little red-head as they hugged, both the lady and Victoria laughing like long lost family members that had just found each other.

It was truly a sweet sight, but Yuuri felt like he was intruding on something that wasn’t his business so he went back to practicing his routine, choreography for the Free Skate complete, lacking a few needed jumps and spins.

Although he _did_ notice when Victoria had pointed at him and the blonde lady seemingly looked in the very direction he was skating. He pretended to be oblivious to this until the red-head glided over to him and called for his attention, and he apparently had to stop so he could listen to her.

Turns out, Victoria’s mother was also a huge fan of Yuuri Katsuki and wanted to meet him in person.

He wasn’t going to refuse her of course, even if he was still a bit awkward about him having any fans and it was so painfully obvious. The lady, Victoria’s mother was cool about it anyway. She’d politely asked of his fiancé, Viktor, stating that her daughter’s father was Viktor’s huge fan and would’ve liked to meet him.

“I’ll make sure to tell him that.” He nods and smiles politely, excusing himself to the ice while Victoria’s mom said something about ice-cream and then left the rink. The red-head continued to skate though, a happier smile on her face while she did a twirl, more balanced this time, and landed impeccably.

“That was pretty good.” He complimented, and she beamed forth a smile at getting a compliment from her favorite skater—not that he was humoring himself. Victoria skated off later on, and Yuuri was once more left alone to continue his routine, counting down the minutes down to the second he would be leaving to go home and attend to his Viktor. Hopefully he was feeling better by then.

 

Yuuri’s walk back to the apartment was supposed to be short, the air cool and calm, people milling about and going on with their lives, no threatening signs or tingles up his spine. However, he felt like it was taking hours for him to reach the door. His being on really high alert like his body was just waiting for something… _terrible_ to happen, except he didn’t know what.

His heart beat as if he couldn’t get the door to his home open fast enough, like if he didn’t he would have a knife stabbed into his ribs or something similar. But once he was inside, the door slammed shut out of paranoia, and Viktor was on the sofa looking up at Yuuri like there was something wrong with him. “Yuuri?” He frowned, nose not looking as red as before and face less flushed which meant he was getting better. Viktor’s blanket which he was wearing over his shoulder fell off as he stood up, and landed on a sleeping Makkachin on the floor. “Yuuri what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Yuuri only shook his head, gulping and heading over to the room to drop his bag and prepare for a nice shower. “I’m fine Viktor, just tired.” It was a lie and Yuuri knew Viktor could tell from the way he frowned again. He guessed he was going to get an earful from the older man about keeping secrets from him now. Yuuri only hoped he didn’t think he was cheating on him, because he does _not_ know how to handle that sort of accusation.

But he wasn’t told anything even as he made his way into the bathroom, and he was glad, because it gave him some time to think about why his brain was acting more anxious and scared than him before a GPF event. Maybe it was the letter coming to haunt him again? He’d thought he’d stopped dwelling too much on it. Apparently he’d thought wrong.

Upon emerging from the bathroom, he found Viktor was still on the sofa, Makkachin curled up beside him and the TV still on. Their eyes were entirely on the screen as a news lady was speaking in careful Russian, the headlines also displayed in the language which he still had a hard time understanding. Yuuri could only pick out ‘caught’ and ‘time’ from the anchorwoman, but by the way Viktor’s brows furrowed at the screen, he could tell whatever it was was scarily serious.

“Viktor? What is it? What are they saying?” He asked, eager to know so he could share his worry.

Viktor replied, but with his eyes still glued to the TV. “It’s Yurio…”

“They found him?” Yuuri’s heart beat with excitement, fear and anticipation. If they’d found Yurio they would have found Phichit too, right? Then all this anxiety and paranoia would be over and he wouldn’t have to spend his nights and mornings worrying about whether or not they would wind up dead if they weren’t found in time or—

“Yuuri.” Viktor says, voice gentle but sharp enough despite his lingering illness to drag him out of his thoughts. “It’s not Yurio, it’s his kidnapper.”

“Oh…” His hopes deflate, evident on his face as his eyes droop and he’s encased in a hug.

“I know Yuuri, I’d hoped too.” His fiancé admits, and he feels his face buried in his hair, lips soothingly moving against it as he spoke. “But don’t worry, once he confesses we’re going to find them. And everything will be back to normal.” Viktor says this and pecks him on the forehead, and Yuuri wants to believe him. But that voice at the back of his head, the one that whispers to him of his shortcomings as a skater and a person, the one that stomps down on his ambitions and initiates self-damaging depression. That voice, whispers to him now, that this was just the beginning.

And he feared it was only going to get worse.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Inez** _

Inez couldn’t be happier.

A criminal had been caught, albeit still awaiting some sort of trial, they’d found a lead on victim #2, she met one of her favorite skaters, she hadn’t run into her ex—thankfully, and she had gotten to see her daughter and take her out for ice-cream. Absolutely nothing was bound to ruin this day.

Or that’s what he thought until she watched the intercontinental news.

_“American figure skater Leo de la Iglesia has been reported missing, at around two PM Central time yesterday. His apartment was found to be in an untouched condition, although there has been no sign of him in the last thirty six hours. California PD has already started a thorough search, which is still underway and might have to resort to help from the FBI if he isn’t found within 48 hours. A similar case has been informed to have occurred in Russia, Europe, where a Thai and Russian figure skater were found to be missing and have still not been recovered for the past three weeks. We fear that figure skaters are being targeted all around the globe and that no one is safe. Not even in the comfort of their homes.”_

Shit. Crap. Fuck.

“The hell?” She mouthed, frowning at the TV while another woman took the screen, the background changing to one of a homey neighborhood, the lady most likely been the young skater’s mother by the way she took the mike and sobbed into it. Words barely coherent except the little ‘Please’ and ‘Baby’ and ‘Find him’ that she managed to grasp until it changed back to the anchorwoman, closing in on the news with a relay of the police saying they would do all that they could. The headlines no sooner changed to something about North Korea having a spat with some other country which she then muted so she could process what was going on.

Apparently, her former intuition that they were only targeting people in a particular country or continent was wrong. Whatever this Organization was, they were running some global shit.

And it was much bigger than anything she’d had to face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought it was going to be Yuuri or Viktor next huh?
> 
> Don’t worry, their time is coming. But I felt it would have been too cliché (And I was also trying to surprise the lot of you) if one of the main characters got stolen next. We are talking about ALL the skaters being endangered aren't we? 
> 
> Many POV’s were added so I could FINALLY advance the freaking plot and to make it short without making it appear long (5k+ words people). Any who, your thoughts on this chapter and the next one, subscribe and share and all that shit.
> 
> Oh, and for those questions, here are the answers below (IT’S SORT OF A SPOILER. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SCROLL DOWN THE * PLEASE)
> 
> • Whoops, Lev and Mikhail are not the same person (Their related but not by blood. The both of them are going to lead to the other tho).  
> • Yuuri’s fan (Tori) is going to be so fucking important you don’t even know. Just try to follow up with her, I’m trying to write her so that only bits of her character and personality shows so I don’t ruin the plot and shit.  
> • Yeah, there are going to be some characters that won’t get kidnapped because I feel weird about torturing them. (Although their fates are still going to be brutal and they’re gonna face some major issues).  
> • Yes, Tori is Inez’s daughter.  
> • Mikhail’s goal is going to be revealed in the chapters after this so keep your eyes peeled and mind alert. (It has something to do with more than just being a sadistic torturer. They’re terrorists after all so we’re dealing with some political crud.)
> 
>  
> 
> *  
> • Anymore questions? State in the comments below and I will reply in the next chapter’s end notes.
> 
> Once again thanks to: Hanairoh, Parni1380 and Yuzu_ir for commenting and lots of love to those that left Kudos!
> 
> I love you all for keeping up with my story and for reading it! Your comments and good vibes fuel me and make me smile! 


	8. ‘…. I’m scared’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Makkachin had double crossed Yuuri and shown Viktor the letter anyway? What if he led him to where he trashed it, or took it from the bin itself and given it to him? Yuuri should know better than to think Makkachin would betray his oldest owner and friend like that, but still—
> 
> “—Yuuri are you listening?”
> 
> “Sorry what was that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the chapter where the bad things happen. (Thank ya’ll for 1000+ hits! I really didn’t know it would get so high???) Anyway, here’s your next chapter, and I apologize for the long wait!

Chapter 8: '... I'm scared.'

 

  
_**Yuuri** _

 

The news said it all, he didn’t have to wonder or think anymore.

_No skater was safe._

The police and state officers acted as body guards, patrolling the grounds of their homes, police cars on either side of the rink whenever it was open. Yuuri appreciated the help and time the government was taking for their safety, but sometimes they could be really _annoying._

“Sorry sir, hope you don’t mind.” One of the guards assigned to look over the skaters at the rink had him halted before he could begin his early morning run. Viktor was looking better this morning, his fever healing rapidly, enabling him well enough to run with him. But now it seemed like they were going to have to just go back to get their skating equipment so they could stop at the rink, because so far they’ve wasted a good twenty something minutes standing there and doing nothing while the officers scouted the area ahead of them.

“Look, what if we just go stop at the rink so we won’t have to come back?” Viktor suggested, though the idea was already in his head. It was just that Yuuri wouldn’t have said it as calmly.

The officer however, only shook his head in indifferent response. “Sir, we’re doing this for your safety. Both of you. We’ll let you free until we are sure the perimeter is safe.” It was understandable that they were worried, there had been reports of suspicious activity roaming the neighborhood the previous night. Two people had their house burgled, but besides that no one had been kidnapped. Though the fact gave room for various forms of fear, he was just tired of feeling so afraid all the time. And tired of being at stake or endangered.

Viktor had the great idea of just letting the police keep an eye on them while they went on their way, but the police weren’t body guards. They were just doing their jobs and following protocol. They had to wait.

Twenty more minutes had passed before they were let on their way again, and by that time the rink would’ve already been open. People would’ve already started their practice, and they would have to start later than their normal time. It was okay, the thing that counted was their practice. And Yuuri was sure he wasn’t going to let anything make them late again.

So imagine his surprise when he and Viktor had arrived at the rink, only to find that it was blocked by police tapes while every other person waited outside.

“What’s going on?” He heard Viktor ask Mila, who looked the most annoyed and had been in a conversation with some other female skater answered in angry Russian, before switching to English so Yuuri wasn’t left out of the conversation.

“Apparently they think they saw someone breaking into the rink last night and are checking for any bombs or crap like that.” She explains, arms folded indignantly. “Normally I wouldn’t mind that they’re looking out for us, but I’m just so mad.” Her frown lingers for a moment before her features sadden, something resembling reminiscence flashes across her eyes. “If Yuri was here, he would be swearing like a sailor right now. I wish they’d find him already.”

It wasn’t something they brought up very often, but when they did, he could sense the air change. Every moment the little bean of blond fury came to mind, he sent silent prayers to whatever was looking out for him to bring Yuri and Phichit back. And to bring them back soon.

No one said anything for a while, that is until the silence was broken by one of the officers announcing that they were clear, and they could start with their practice.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Inez** _

  
“So what do you think it means?”

“A lot of things,” Inez’s partner replied over the phone while she waited at the HQ where she worked with the NCIS agents. Not surprisingly, her partner had caught wind of the news as well, and had been the first to call. For the first time, Inez was glad that her partner wasn’t with her. There needed to be people she knew and trusted keeping an eye on her city while she worked in Pita and watched over her daughter.

“Like…?”

“Maybe their trying to prove a point to someone?”

“Maybe.” She analyzed, mulling over her own thoughts. Since she was ever involved in the first investigation revolving around the terrorists, it had always been the question of the day. _What point were these people trying to make?_

At first she had narrowed it down to it being menial, maybe it was just some psychotic serial kidnapper taking specific people off the streets for purposes she never really understood. But after the big kidnapping of over a dozen snowboarders in the last two years, the largest case she’d ever been involved in, Inez knew she had to redirect and expand her research. Unfortunately, it had been cut short as a result of not finding any leads and therefore with the assumption that they were dead already.

It had been infuriating. She had no idea what she was dealing with, and no idea _how_ to deal with it. But after she had found Antoine Julio on the streets that fateful day, over a month ago, after she had seen for herself evidence of what she was up against, after she had heard the tales of suffering souls told through another victim that had somehow, by some miracle was _alive_ enough to allow her enter through his broken mind and pick out pieces to help others, after last night’s news, Inez knew she could be finally one step closer to helping crack this case.

Her confidence however, dwindled after realizing that this was a bigger case than only she could handle.

She’d dealt with terrorist attacks before, but usually on a small scale. She’d never had to deal with something involving hundreds of billions of people worldwide. It would take a lot more than what she thought if she ever needed these people to be brought to justice.

“Officer Carpal.” She was brought out of her stupor when Agent Mac had come in, looking all business and no games as per usual. Marshall had ended his call minutes ago, and she only noticed just now how long those minutes actually were. “The lawyer’s here. We need to start now.”

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
Four hours.

They’ve been at it for four hours.

And the only thing Inez got out of it was the desire to strangle the damn lawyer’s neck till he croaked.

He’d been a real bastard’s ass from the beginning of the questioning, with his stupid snide smirk and his false biased charm that he thought he had going but was only able to portray as sheer annoying. And Misha stayed thoroughly silent throughout, looking only to his lawyer when he didn’t want to reply to the questions.

Fortunately, there would be a separate interrogation permissioned by the higher ups where there wouldn’t be a lawyer involved due to his inability to comply. But for now, they would have to make do with what they muddled to get, which they were only able to get when they weren’t asking the questions.

In between the four hours, they had taken a break to let the lawyer and his client discuss they’re next course of action, or what Inez liked to call an opportunity to eavesdrop. She had stood behind a one way glass barrier for the entirety of the little five minute break, and what she and the agents were able to obtain was plenty more valuable than the ‘My client refuses to comment’ replies.

  
_“So, when am I getting out of here?”_ Misha asked his lawyer, a dubious expression on his face as he peered at the older man for answers.

_“Soon enough. But we may have to be careful what we do around here. He watches you know.”_

_“I’m well aware. You haven’t answered my question though.”_

_“Not to worry, he knows what he is doing. He can’t lose his best agent you know.”_

_“You flatter me. Does he have a plan?”_

_“You know how he works.”_

  
The last sentence was spoken by the lawyer while he looked directly at her through the glass, like he knew Inez was watching. At that moment her heart pulsed, a sharp warning throb sending bells ringing in her head like she should know something but didn’t. It aggravated her to no end, especially when she was still able to get no information out of him for the remainder of the four hours.

“What do you think he meant when he said ‘He watches’. Think he has an inside agent here?” Inez asked, asking the experienced navy officers whose had to deal with large scale crimes before.

“At this point, assuming he’s a big well-known crime lord we have the right to believe he has eyes everywhere.” Agent Rick replied, his fingers on his chin as he thought. “What I’m really worried about is that plan they were talking about. And at a point it seemed like he was looking at you Officer Carpal isn’t that right?”

Inez was glad she wasn’t the only one that noticed the lawyer’s direction of his gaze, she however didn’t like anyone to think she had ties to whatever was going on involving the ‘Missing Person’s’ case. “I believe so. I feel like he was trying to tell me something I should know.”

“Something you should prepare for.”

“Like a warning?” Agent Mac suggested, brows rising as she pondered.

Inez raised a brow in reply, looking at the other woman for some kind of answer that she herself hadn’t figured out yet. “What kind of warning would that be?”

“I dunno.” She turned her gaze towards Inez, a skeptical glare in her eyes that spoke of something that went deeper than fear. “I think that’s for you to find out.”

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Yuuri** _

  
“Yuuri, I think you should take a break.” Viktor suggested after Yuuri’s ninth fall. It was a bit of a surprise that he hadn’t broken anything yet, but he was way too stubborn to admit he should take that as a sign to rest before something bad actually did happen.

“I’m fine.”

“The hand clutching your probably bruised hip says otherwise.” Viktor pointed out, and Yuuri immediately dropped his hand from where he hadn’t noticed it was perched. “Come on _dorogoy_. The doctor says you shouldn’t be falling so much.”

“It’s been weeks, I think I can handle it.” And besides, he’s fallen a lot more times before and he had been fine after some sleep. Why was Viktor being so worrisome now?

_Maybe he knows you know something._

Like the letter?

It still niggled somewhere at the back of his mind but he’d long since forgotten about it now. Especially since nothing horribly wrong had happened in the past week in Russia and he realized he’d been worrying for nothing. Unless Viktor knew?

What if Makkachin had double crossed Yuuri and shown Viktor the letter anyway? What if he led him to where he trashed it, or took it from the bin itself and given it to him? Yuuri should know better than to think Makkachin would betray his oldest owner and friend like that, but still—

“—Yuuri are you listening?”

“Sorry what was that?” Yuuri’s eyes widened, feeling a bit self-conscious that he had been caught lost in thought while Viktor spoke. The silver-haired man himself only sighed and put a hand to his head while he ran his fingers through the light strands. He finally turned back to look at Yuuri, the ‘concerned coach’ face that he liked to put on whenever Yuuri was proving to be stubborn was on, and he knew the order he was going to give wasn’t going to give Yuuri much of a choice.

“I think you should call it a day.”

“What—”

“There’s obviously something on your mind right now, and from what I know from you it’s causing you to flub your jumps and we don’t want any major injuries to affect you right now, especially after last time. So until you are ready to share, you should take a walk.” Yuuri wanted to protest, argue a bit more on his right to more time on the ice that the others had, but Viktor had a point. Yuuri couldn’t afford any injuries now, especially when the assignments would soon be out.

 

> “Okay Viktor.” Yuuri replies, and he smiles a little as Viktor sighs quietly like he has accomplished a daunting task.

As Yuuri leaves for the bathrooms at the rink, he catches sight of Tori along with her mates as they are to get on the ice soon. They wave at each other and she then points to the hairpin of him she had chosen to wear that day which causes an even bigger smile to appear on his face.

Yuuri already knew how almost every great skater had a fan base, and he also knew how his was basically almost non-existent—no matter what Phichit and Viktor said—but there was something about meeting a kid who had been inspired and looks up to you and makes very cute hairpins of you that has something like a warm feeling spread in your chest. It was a feeling one got after giving to charity knowing you have helped a good cause. It was like the feeling Yuuri got when Viktor had barged into his life naked, and promised his career on the ice hope. Promised Yuuri’s future certainty and a road ahead paved with love even amidst inevitable struggles.

The warm feeling was no sooner replaced by a sudden pang of something reminiscent to when your heart skips a beat from a shock, and he stumbled a bit upon entering the restrooms. The place was empty of course. No one was there. No one was watching him. He sighs, absentmindedly watching his back because of the sudden feeling of paranoia that has his sixth sense shook.

“Everything’s fine.” He tells himself in the mirror, half-expecting someone behind him to appear out of nowhere as he gazes into the reflective surface like in the movies. “Calm down.” He tries his breathing exercise to control his nerves for whenever he feels it acting up. He’s probably still a bit shaken from his last fall. Maybe he should take a well-deserved nap at home before he thought about practice, or maybe practice with any jumps. He wanted to get back to having that warm feeling which was a much better feeling than fear. He was going back to the rink, maybe to watch Viktor skate and cheer Tori on.

But as Yuuri moves to the door, the loudest of blaring alarms ring into his ears. A high pitched squeal that lasted for the longest five seconds of his life before he felt the ground beneath him wobble slightly.

What was that? An earthquake?

Yuuri went for the door, pieces of debris falling atop him as he swung the door open and was met with overwhelming heat and the sound of terrified screams in his ears. The hall he was in had two ends, one that led to the rink and one to the car park underneath. Both ends emitted smoke. He could see the fiery hot licks of fire as it consumed the doors to the rink, the other doors at the other end of the hall still emitted smoke, but he wasn’t risking going in there. His best bet was to go back into the bathroom, look for a window he could escape from and hopefully make it out alive.

Now if Yuuri was any bit of levelheaded right now, he would have done exactly that.

But unless Yuuri suddenly became a certified fire fighter, he had the right to freak the cheese out and pee his pants a little.

Yuuri was literally in the middle of a fire outbreak in a building, and his first thoughts of course went to Viktor, whose name he began to yell out as if he would drop from the sky like an angel and carry him to safety.

Debris from above had already started to fall, and before he could run right back into the bathroom and search for a possible escape route, a conveniently large gunk of ceiling engulfed in flames dropped from above and also conveniently blocked the restroom door. But let’s not forget that it was also on fire so he had no idea what to do except hope he doesn’t die in all the mess of flames that had started to surround him.

The hallway was already choking up with smoke from the fast-spreading fire, and now Yuuri was panicking. He was crying. He didn’t want to die. Not now.

Debris from above kept on falling, and there was fire on the floor now from both ends of the hall. Whatever it was that had caused the fire had also knocked out the power so he couldn’t see clearly, especially not now with all the smoke and smog as well as his own tears blotching his vision.

No matter how many times Yuuri whirred his head around, up, down, left and right, he couldn’t seem to find any way out. He could run back and forth, but he was still slowly losing his energy. Flames blocked his every step. The last thing he expected to happen was for his knee to jerk, and for the aches that were supposed to have disappeared days ago to return right in the middle of a fire outbreak.

Now he couldn’t run. Even if he managed to find a way out he couldn’t run because his stupid knee decided to pick the worst time to start acting up. Yuuri knew he was screwed now. His body wracked with coughs as his nose and throat and lungs struggled against the un-breathable gas fumes of the fire. He could feel the burning heat getting closer as he held his knee, willing the ache to go away and come back at another time or not at all.

The sound of a high pitched crying though caught him off guard.

Amidst all the smoke and fire and debris, he could make out the silhouette of a really short figure. The person couldn’t be more than nine or eight years of age, and said person was in danger.

Yuuri, also being in danger as well knew this, but being in the child’s shoes, Yuuri would want someone to hold him and hug him and tell him everything would be okay even if it might not. So being logical enough, he yelled.

“Hey!” He waved his arm, hoping that whoever was there could notice him in all the panic. Coughs racked his body again, and he could feel his eyes irritant to all the smoke, but he wasn’t going to stop there. He called out again, and this time he could hear the crying slow down, volume decreasing.

“Hello?” It sounded like a girl, her voice wavered as she sounded frightened.

“Yeah, over here!” He waved again. “Can you see me?”

It took a while for a reply, Yuuri almost thinking she may have fainted from asphyxiation. “Yes, I can… I can see you, but… but not very well.”

“That’s okay!” He yelled back, and tried to stand up. The pain in his leg joint grew worse, and he couldn’t stop the whimper from escaping his lips. But he was going to push through, no matter how much it hurt. “Just follow the sound of my voice, I’m going to try and get you, but you need to do the same! Okay?”

There was another pause before she replied, her voice this time sounding more scared than before. “Okay…”

Yuuri would give anything for a fire extinguisher right then, the fire had stopped spreading as rapidly but it still caused damage to the building surrounding them. He kept his eyes on the silhouette of the figure, making sure that he never kept his gaze off of it. Coming closer, he could make out tiny coughs coming from her direction and he needed to move just a little bit closer to get to her.

Amidst all the fire and soot staining her face, he could make out her features enough to notice it was his fan with the hairpin. He first wondered what she was doing there, but he thought to save that question for a more logically reasonable time.

“Yuuri!” She seemed as surprised to see him, her expression no sooner contorting into discomfort as she was overwhelmed with surrounding smoke.

All that was left was for her to get to him, except the ceiling overhead was falling apart and would fall down any second. If it did fall, Tori would be trapped on the other side as well as Yuuri on his. She needed to move fast.

“Tori, can you move?” He asked, keeping half of his attention on the ceiling. The seven year old girl must have noticed too, because her reply was a whimper then a ‘no’.

The heat was almost unbearable, Yuuri feeling like a sausage in the microwave as he tried to inch closer to her. Putting his foot forward however caused some kind of breach in the structure, and a crack on the wall grew towards the ceiling causing more debris to collapse. “Tori, you have to! Come on!”

“… But I can’t. I don’t want to get crushed.”

“It’s okay Tori.” He quickly glimpsed at the ceiling that was quickly giving under the fire’s effects. There was no way she could run. “I need you to jump.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes you can. I need you to jump as far as you can okay? I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Do you trust me?”

“…. I’m scared. I’m not sure I can do it.”

“It’s okay. It’s going to be just like your flip. Can you do that Tori?”

There was a brief moment of silence before she replied. Yuuri himself wasn’t sure if he was going to get her with the ache in his leg, but he was damned if he wasn’t going to try. “Yeah… okay.”

“Good. Now I’m gonna count, on three. One… two… … three!” At that, with all the power her seven-year old legs could conjure, she jumped, kicking off with her leg and with an impressive margin landing towards his arms and away from the falling ceiling. She clutched onto him like a lifeline, and he held onto her the same way, holding her head towards his chest as he watched the ceiling finally collapse and scatter into many other indistinguishable pieces.

Hurriedly as Yuuri could go while ignoring his numbingly aching knee, he and Tori made it over through a slim passage he’d found earlier between the wreckage and flames to a temporary shelter where it would take a long while before it would reach them. Hopefully, help would have found them by then.

Yuuri helped to pass the time before their inevitable demise or rescue by holding Tori close and telling her stories. Most of them were the ones his mother told him at night when he was a child before he went to bed, and as the seconds changed to minutes, he found that Tori who had previously been shaking and crying had calmed a bit.

“Yuuri, when we get saved, I’m going to tell all my friends that you’re a real live hero.”

“Oh yeah?” He laughed some, not so subtly stifling the coughs arising from his throat as the smoke got thicker in the windowless area. He pressed her face against his chest some more, praying to every deity and all the stars above that some sort of help would come quick as he did all he could to protect Tori and himself.

It took some time—Tori having to hit his face once when it seemed like he was falling asleep—before help finally, _finally_ arrived.

“Yuuri look, help…” Tori said, shaking him rather weakly and directing his attention towards someone with a flashlight who appeared just like a firefighter.

Well, it was one guy, but it was still help all the same.

“Hey, over here!” Yuuri yelled, calling for attention and then checking to tell Tori that they had found help. Fortunately, he was seen, but unfortunately Tori looked like she was fading fast from suffocation. Her eyes weren’t shut yet, but she seemed to be hanging on.

Yuuri looked on worriedly, urging her to please try to stay awake and stay with him, grateful help had found them just in time. “It’s okay Tori, just hang on. We’ve found help.”

The young girl looked up drowsily, a small smile on her face as she hugged him tighter.

“We’re gonna be okay.”

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Viktor** _

It had been thirty minutes since the firemen had arrived at the inflamed rink and everyone on and around the ice had been moved out, and Yuuri had still not been found.

Thankfully, none of his rink mates had been hurt and he himself had only gotten a scalded arm after getting too close to the heat while he was about to get Yuuri. He hadn’t been able to, as he was being dragged away by his friends and others from the fire to where it was safe.

Currently, Viktor was still being checked over by the medical personal while he watched the firefighters do their work and try to control the fire that had suspiciously erupted out of nowhere. He was certain this was the very thing the police were trying to avoid while searching the building, and yet here the ice rink was, on fire and destroyed nearly inside out.

Viktor’s thoughts and attention averted once he saw a dark haired male being brought out on a gurney. He hurriedly abandoned the nurse checking him for most likely the thirteenth time, and went over to the personnel taking care of his Yuuri in the gurney.

…Which turned out to _not_ be Yuuri at all…

It was instead some other kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen years of age that had been stuck in the locker room under some fallen lockers, according to them. He couldn’t see the burns very well, but half his face looked almost seared. Viktor watched with worry as they put an oxygen mask on his face while people that were most likely his friends tried to hitch a ride in the ambulance. One of them had broken down crying.

The urge to console anyone at the moment was so easily stomped down, because he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything except Yuuri.

The fire had almost being stemmed out, and the firefighters were still going into the building to search for any person that may or may not have survived.

Minutes that transitioned into hours passed as more people were brought out of the building, most of them hadn’t lived. The few that had minutes later been retrieved were either terribly hurt and burnt or very unconscious. Yuuri was part of neither of the bunch.

“Are you sure that’s everyone? There isn’t anyone else in the building?” A very worried Viktor asked for the umpteenth time, and the firewoman with the patience of a saint that had had to put up with him responded with the same reply.

“Yes sir. I assure you that we’ve checked the building.” She says. “But don’t worry, our staff and the crime scene investigators are going to come over to do a more thorough search and maybe find the source of the fire out—”

“I don’t care about the source!” Viktor snapped, eyes fiery and brimming with angry, frustrated tears he quickly wiped away with his hands. “I just want to find my Yuuri.”

The lady couldn’t do anything else but respond with a comforting pat on the shoulder and words of reassurance that did nothing to stem Viktor’s nerves and the feeling that something horribly wrong had happened to his fiancé.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Inez** _

  
Inez had heard about the fire.

Everyone had heard about the fire.

Everyone had heard about how the rink where Russia’s top competitive skaters practiced had been engulfed in flames by an unknown source at 12:00PM prompt.

A total of twelve people had died, ten were hurt, and six were in a coma.

And in not one of these groups could she find her daughter.

Devastating as the news was that her baby girl was either still lost amongst the wreckage or somehow gone missing in the chaos, her mind remained skeptical.

Inez was worried, very worried. Too worried to pick up any calls from her partner who was only concerned about her well-being and wanted to check up on her. The effort was very much appreciated, but she was a born detective. And skepticism and curiosity were more of instincts than required skill sets when it came to her. The need to cry and worry and curse was very tempting, and it was only the logical, maternal response to these sorts of issues, but Inez wasn’t going to stop being herself when she knew nothing was going to be solved if she didn’t get up and doing.

The very reasons which explained why she was up connecting the dots as soon as she discovered the skater Katsuki Yuuri, wasn’t found in the aftermath of the fire as well.

Knowing the situation, it had an 80 to 89 percent chance of it being connected to the huge missing person’s case she was currently working on. The memory of Misha and his lawyer talking to each other about some plan, and the way the lawyer had looked directly at her like he could somehow see through the barriers quickly came to mind and in no time she knew she was very close to being right.

However, she needed to contact the one person she had in the beginning hoped to avoid, and her hand had paused above the call button, wondering whether she should think this through.

There was a reason she and him hadn’t spoken in a long, long while, and right now, she really didn’t want to settle on those reasons, not having the time or energy to worry about whether those things would affect what she was about to do now.

The call had started before she could stop herself, and as expected it had been picked up. She was glad when her voice did not waver as she was the one who began the conversation.

“Lev… I know you know where Tori is. I want her back.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun duuuuuuun!!!! *insert evil laughter*  
> :0- Yup Star, you finally did it this time. Just what exactly are you doing dumping this on us after such a long wait?  
> Well… according to Demi Lovato: ‘Sorry not Sorry’  
> Haha! Don’t you just love messing with the skaters like this? No? Just me? Oh well, you know how it is in the angst business.  
> Any way! Hope this chapter was good! Sorry to say though that updates might not be very fast for some time (Note ONLY for some time), because I’m going to be super busy this month and the next but I’ll try my best! 
> 
> Tell me what you think, and many kisses to Parni1380, Hanairoh and Yuzu_ir for commenting on my last chapter! And lots of love to every person who left kudos! You give me life!!!
> 
> Also, I have no idea how this beta thing works (excuse my ignorance, it’s the first fic I’ve ever written and been dedicated to) so I’ve been doing it on my own. I’m bringing this up now because I have many other drafted fics I wish to release to the world and I’m not very usually very confident in my writing sometimes. So if any of ya’ll know how it works, because once again I do NOT, please help me out! Once again thank you for reading and also for the 1k+ hits!!!


	9. ‘… You’re the kidnapper?’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was he being kidnapped right now? How long had he been unconscious? Why did he feel like he’d had a bad hangover? Were they going to kill him??? Why is he asking himself so many questions when he should be thinking about how to escape what are probably the atrocious hands of death?
> 
> And what about Viktor? Was he okay?
> 
> Was he DEAD???
> 
> Okay, probably not. Maybe they just took him and left his fiancé. Then in that case, Viktor was going to be worried out of his mind if he found out he got missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not been that long of a wait I hope!!! Here’s chapter 9, people! Story continues after first POV, which is just kind of like a backstory of what one of my important OC’s. Please enjoy! (^_^).

Chapter 9: ‘… You’re the kidnapper?’

 

  
_**Lev** _

 

If Lev had to count how many times he’d had to put his life on the line for someone, he would say he hadn’t even bothered counting, because he’d just never had the opportunity to. Not that he wasn’t given the chance, he just never had someone he would have gladly given his life for.

He’d grown up as a street rat, ran away from the orphanage and the social service system, raised by no one and self-taught himself on the art of thievery and conning. Lev had had no one to look out for him, and the people were either cruel or completely dismissive to the poor boy living on the streets and sleeping under bridges or cardboard boxes or gathering around a fire in a barrel with all the other hobos, having to work sketchy jobs just to get a meal a day. He’d grown up in a world where no one cared about him and he was treated like garbage, and he only did what was fair and returned the favor by treating the world how it treated him.

Lev got through life that way, and he learned to deal with it.

He’d gotten tired eventually.

Up until he was 16, some events occurred that got him arrested, causing him to spend a 10 year sentence in jail. Once released, he’d used his many sketchy connections he’d obtained from his years on the streets and got himself a new ID, and a one way ticket out of the country where he moved to Russia and got a job at a college coffee shop. It was there he met her. Inez Carpal.

She was a sophomore majoring in law and minoring in Creative Art, 20 years old, skated for fun and had long blonde hair and the finest blue eyes.

He’d hated her at first sight, and the feeling was quite mutual between them. She was a preppy, free five star student and he was just a guy who worked at a café and hadn’t had any other education besides the one he received up until high school. They were completely different. It would never work.

His feelings changed when she’d found out who he was months before her graduation, and he’d told her she could be a detective or maybe an ice dancer because she was good at both. She’d laughed, he hadn’t. Lev had never believed in the ideology of love, in fact he’d thought it was plain ridiculous. But it was all he’d felt soon after they had parted ways. They had met back later after two years and she told him she was working on being a detective like he’d said.

After spending the day with her they hit it off and made love that night.

And the night after that.

And six nights after that.

When he heard she’d moved away without telling him, he’d been devastated. He watched ice skaters prance around the ice or crime drama shows to be reminded of her. But it was only driving him mad, so he changed course and decided to move on. He hooked up with some stripper lady at a bar, and started a sex life with her.

Lev didn’t know he was making a mistake until it was too late, the lady had been some spy, and the records of his past had been dug up and by none other than the most feared crime lord possibly worldwide. Mikhail Ivakina.

How and why? He hadn’t known, but he was non-consensually welcomed into his organization like he’d signed some application forms and walked into a new job. He hadn’t fought him though. Mikhail was a powerful man and Lev needed a distraction anyway, and he’d only promised not to go back into his past life for Inez, but she was gone from his life. He didn’t care.

That changed when Inez had contacted him months later to inform him of her of their daughter. He had thought he would be indifferent to the news, because he’d had sex with tons of other ladies and had no remorse. He might have even lost their numbers somewhere along the line. But he realized he loved Inez, and possibly whatever came out of her as well.

He’d gotten the chance to meet her when Inez had come to St. Petersburg three years later for a short period of time to begin her first ever investigative work, and she had carried the little girl with her.

She was only three years old when he saw her for the first time, and she had looked every bit as beautiful as her mother. The two of them had some father-daughter time while Inez was out on an op, and both went to the ice rink because her mother used to adore skating and of course she’d loved it too. It was the most likely reason why his daughter had been named after the female rendition of the famous Russian figure skater Viktor Nikiforov. Victoria.

Inez had returned two years later after getting that post as Chief Detective, and then dropped Victoria off with him in Pita due to the risks of her little girl being in the same city as a cop hunting down criminal organizations and taking down said criminals.

However, he still hadn’t told her that he worked for the very organization she was sworn to obliterate, but he loved his daughter and wanted to be with her despite his job which wouldn’t let him be there for her all the time. He said yes anyway. But, after Inez had found out about his job working for a bunch of terrorists, she took her daughter from him and made her stay with her friend in the city, only letting him see her once in a while just because Victoria loved her father very much. He accepted these terms anyway, because it would be safer if she wasn’t so close to danger or him. He never thought or wondered why his love never sent him to jail, and he didn’t mind.

Lev’s job had him work undercover in so many cities at so many different places. One day he was a waiter in a restaurant, the next day he was a staff member of a hotel checking rooms and treating guests to complementary luxuries. Despite this he made time for his daughter by watching her on the ice with Inez’s friend who taught little kids to skate, and had even gotten her a photo of himself and that Japanese figure skater she liked so much.

There had been some semblance of peace at the time, and everything for the organization was running smoothly. It was a shame it wouldn’t last very long given that his love was working day and night to take it down, but what was he to do except to sit back and watch it happen?

However things quickly escalated when Inez had come back, and he was called in by the man himself to partake in another undercover job in Moscow, while he carried on with his next malevolent plans that involved burning down a rink. The very rink his daughter skated in as well. He wasn’t happy about that.

“Sir, with all due respect I need to ask why we’re burning the rink. Is it that necessary to kill so many—”

“What you need to do Mr. Galkin, is to not question my orders, especially if it doesn’t concern you.”

Lev shut up after catching that dangerous glint in his eye that said he wouldn’t condone any more defiance from him, and begrudgingly complied, later having to find out from a close accomplice that the plan had to do with something along the lines of death and his daughter. Lev wasn’t allowing any of that, so he devised a plan which had his accomplices rescue Victoria from the fire and bring her over to where he stayed in Moscow, not caring of the consequences or whether his obvious stomp in Mikhail’s plans would cost him his life.

If Lev had to count how many times he’d had to put his life on the line for someone now, he would say maybe the few hundred times he’d had to pull strings so Mikhail’s plans didn’t end up with the death of someone he really cared about, which were only two people in this world if he were being honest.

The love of his life, and his sweet, precious little girl.

  
……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
_**Yuuri** _

 

Yuuri wasn’t made aware of when he had fallen asleep or lost consciousness, nor did he have any memory of whatever event occurred before hand, but he sure as hell didn’t expect to see himself in a car trunk, his glasses misplaced, and his hands tied with no idea how on earth he got there.

Was he being kidnapped right now? How long had he been unconscious? Why did he feel like he’d had a bad hangover? Were they going to kill him??? Why is he asking himself so many questions when he should be thinking about how to escape what are probably the atrocious hands of death?

And what about Viktor? Was he okay?

Was he DEAD???

Okay, probably not. Maybe they just took him and left his fiancé. Then in that case, Viktor was going to be worried out of his mind if he found out he got missing.

Just like Phichit and Yuri and Leo.

Oh shit. Are these the people that were kidnapping skaters? Yuuri was curious and worried and wanted to know where they were and how they were doing and if they were okay, but not like this. Definitely not like this.

They could be dead for all he knew¬¬—and though he was praying they weren’t—he didn’t want to be another number on the missing persons list, nor did he want to be another person to worry about on whether or not he was dead or alive.

But selfishly… he _did_ want to go. Only if to see that his friends were alive and not dead like he hoped, only to see that they weren’t suffering or wishing to be dead, because if that was the case, Yuuri wouldn’t know what to do. Not with himself and not for anyone because by then, he’d maybe have been long gone.

And Yuuri didn’t want that.

So he kicked, and kicked on where he guessed the backlights were and hoped one fell out or powered down enough to alert someone that another human being was being taken against their will, looked around blindly for maybe a jack hammer of some kind. How did people escape from cars in the movies again? He never actually thought he needed that information until recently. Oh, how regret stung like a bitch.

After what felt like several more hours of pointless attempts at escape, he’d found his glasses at the back recesses of the trunk after looking for them, and eventually the car came to a slow deceleration before finally stopping. Yuuri assumes that they’re either being pulled over or they’ve reached their destination. He really hopes it’s the former.

He heard muffled voices coming from the outside, and if Yuuri had been moving even a little before, he definitely wasn’t now. He held his breath as he heard the smallest hint of the trunk’s mechanism opening, and the lid opened before he could decide on pretending to be unconscious or pouncing out like a wild savage and trying his hand at escaping.

As Yuuri suspected, it was night time which implied that he’d been asleep for hours. Though, he was a bit thrown off by the environment he found himself in. A nice but simple stately home, single floored with an okay sized lawn surrounded by a fence that didn’t let him see beyond it. Which meant the place was in a secluded, hidden place, maybe private property, he wasn’t going to be certain unless he investigated or asked, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask the two burly men hauling him out of the boot like inept luggage.

Yuuri was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, and he was about to say something along the lines of ‘Please don’t hurt me’ when he saw someone else carrying the seven year old girl that claimed to be his biggest fan out of another car and into the building in front of him.

He was no sooner assaulted with the memory of flames and smoke and crashing debris, and Yuuri suddenly remembers what had happened before.

  
_“Don’t worry, we’re gonna be okay.” He said this and patted her head while he tried standing up. The girl was rather heavy at her age, and his aching knee didn’t help the situation at all._

_The man coming closer had approached them already, and though he was wearing all the anti-flammable gear of a firefighter, Yuuri wondered why he was alone, and wasn’t calling for back up._

_The girl was snatched from his hands like he’d been caught stealing her, and hauled her over his shoulder. And after the man looked like he’d just finished contemplating on whether he should take Yuuri or not, he was dragged by his wrist with the hand that wasn’t supporting the seven year old on his shoulder, and through a narrow passage he hadn’t seen before, they made it out of the building, Yuuri, a coughing mess and Tori looking not too awake at the moment._

_They seemed to have reached the car park of the building located at the back, away from where all the fire fighters and people were going to be, and towards where there was another car waiting for them._

_Confused as he was, Yuuri wasn’t able to voice out the question because there had been another car approaching, and more people with unfriendly faces, and then…_

  
That was pretty much where his memories ended for him, and by the looks of it, his situation now wasn’t looking any good.

“Hey, be careful with her.” He said, and as sure as he was that his voice had carried the message across, they ignored him though, and Tori was inside the building and immediately the door was locked.

He’d promised himself that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, and he still planned on keeping that. But maybe not right now when he could barely stand on his own, talk less of if he wanted to escape. His head ached, and his stomach lurched slightly like he was about to throw up its contents.

The guys conversing behind him had finished their conversation with one another, and had turned their unfortunate attention back to Yuuri after he’d tried for the third time to swallow down the need to vomit all over the grass.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to contain his urge and spewed out his puke when they proceeded to carry him upwards to his feet, and the icky green-ish substance stained his shirt and part of his jeans while most of it dripped to the floor, giving the green grass a wet, gooey sheen.

“Aw… sick.” One of the men cursed, letting go of him and letting him drop back to the floor, where his puddle of throw-up was. Yuuri really needed a bath.

The men behind were having a conversation in Russian again, and they managed to sound albeit annoyed and frustrated and amused all at the same time. At the moment he didn’t care whether he was going to get slaughtered, Yuuri just wondered if they’d let him use a bathroom if he asked.

They tried to haul him up once more, and this time he managed not to throw up even though the feeling of nausea still lingered.

Yuuri wasn’t led through the same door he saw Tori go through, and instead he was led to another part of the house, a door on the far side that looked like it led to a basement and nowhere else.

The passage down the steep stairs was eerie and weirdly long, and the air began to feel artificial and cold. It got a little bit warmer as he got lower, which was a more satisfying thought than the idea of being locked in a freezer, but not so satisfying as he remembers they might be taking him to a place where they would kill him or lock him up and he wouldn’t be able to see his loved ones or his friends ever again.

A little part of him wonders if they were going to take him over to where they kept the missing skaters, and his heart thumps with dread and anticipation as the final steps of the stairs becomes nearer and nearer.

Eventually at the base of the steps was a very small area, almost like a tiny lobby with a metal door leading to another room.

He sees one of the men put his thumb on a scanner before the doors locks clicked and it opened.

Yuuri’s expectancy that had been at an impressive high soon drops to a disappointing low to find this slightly wider cemented room completely devoid of life other than him and the two delightful escorts behind. He’d been hoping to see at least someone inside, or something, to get a hint of what was supposed to be happening here. However, all he got was a shove in the back and strict orders to sit in a corner and wait for them while they went through another door he hadn’t noticed was there earlier.

Yuuri complied of course, mostly because he knew defiance wasn’t going to help him if he wanted Tori safe or to keep himself less injured than he was. And also the fact that he couldn’t stand for very long, feeling weak and starving and lacking energy after he had puked out the little sustenance that had been in his stomach a few minutes ago. He still felt nauseated.

And speaking of puke…

Yuuri looked down at himself, noticing his shirt sticky and crumpled with drying vomit, and not to mention the rather distinctive smell radiating off of him.

And there wasn’t a window in sight, so the place was possibly going to start reeking of barf in a matter of minutes and he’s going to have to breathe in the stinky recycled air for another prolonged number of time.

Yuuri decided; he _really_ needed that bathroom.

  
………………………………………………………………………………………

  
_**Lev** _

 

  
_“Lev, I know you know where Tori is. I want her back.”_

Lev had just come back from an assignment, having to oversee that Mikhail’s illegal weaponry made it across the borders and into the storage safely and undetected, and had travelled back to the concealed private building he was staying in until he was done with his job in Moscow.

He had been sure by that time—because Mikhail’s timing was immaculate—the rink would have been burnt down and his daughter would be well on her way to his arms. Heck, maybe she had already arrived and was waiting for him upstairs while he rounded up things at his private closed-off quarters which he used as his sub office.

This had been thoroughly confirmed after he’d gotten a call from his beloved Inez, demanding he tell her where Victoria was. He couldn’t help the smile that twitched at his lips as he imagined the cute determined but frustrated look she must be possessing on her features at the moment. “Good day to you too dear, to what pleasure do I owe this call?”

“Cut the crap Lev.” She says, vexation oozing from her voice. “Tell me where my daughter is.”

“She’s with me. It’s all you need to know.”

There was a moment of silence at first, like she was meditating on if she should be rational with her next reply or just straight out be demanding. She chose wisely. “Is she safe?”

“She’s my daughter too you know.” He says gently, and doesn’t wait for a reply. “And besides, Victoria’s safer with me than she is out there.” He trusted Inez to have figured out that the crazy boss of the organization knew about Inez and would have most likely picked out her weaknesses. It was only inevitable that he would in due course put forethoughts to action.

“Okay,” Inez replies, a bit distracted as if her thoughts were elsewhere. “I want to speak to her later.”

“As you wish, my love.” The call was cut before she could speak another word, and at impressive timing, someone knocked on the door to his sub office just as he dropped his phone, refusing to allow him immerse in his thoughts like he had just planned to do. “Come in.” Lev said, and the door opens, the footsteps of two beings behind him before he could turn around to see their faces, though he already knew who they were.

“So…?” He looked up from his phone, not yet rising from his chair as he had just gotten comfortable.

The first guy, Mark, nodded and gave an affirmative ‘Yeah,’ and ever the man of few words; he let his partner, Luke, speak next, informing Lev on the condition of his daughter and when she would be awake enough to be able to see him.

“Apparently, she fainted from suffocation from the fire, but we had a storage tank and a mask in the car. A minute longer and…” He didn’t need to complete the sentence. If it were up to Lev, he would have had Mikhail’s head on a platter for even harboring the idea of trying to add his daughter to his target list. He couldn’t stand the thought that she could have died if they hadn’t gotten there on time. It shakes him more than anything ever has before.

“Though,” Mark speaks instead of his partner this time, giving off the impression that he’d forgotten something and needed to mention it before he forgot it again. “When I went into the building and saw your daughter, she was being held by someone else. It didn’t look like one of Mikhail’s men.” He pauses and stares at Lev like he was waiting for a reaction of some form before carrying on. “It awfully resembled one of them figure skaters.”

Figure skaters. Well of course a figure skater would be there, it was an ice rink. The ice rink the national skating representatives of Russia trained and practiced in for upcoming competitions. “Well, what happened? Who’s the skater?” Lev riled him on drily.

“Think it’s that Japanese fella that dates Viktor Nikiforov. What was his name again?—”

“Katsuki Yuuri.” He announced it like a shocked statement, not really surprised to hear of him but a bit startled to hear that he’d been with his daughter in the whole thing. Perhaps he was just a victim of circumstance, caught in the middle of a scheme which didn’t concern him, unless it did, though it wouldn’t make much sense. He’d worked for Mikhail for years, and knowing how the man works, Lev knows the crazy bastard enjoys pattern and precision. He’d never stray from the book, especially if it was written by none other than the man himself. Mikhail wasn’t going to choose the next victim until after five more days. It had been two days since the last target, an American kid from somewhere in California, and the sadistic creep would much rather spread out his time taking them one by one instead of collecting them all at the same time.

So he’s more or less even more startled at the next news that spews out of Mark’s mouth.

_“He’s what?!”_

“We couldn’t just let him leave.” Mark tried to explain. “I didn’t exactly want him dead, and he _did_ save Victoria. And if he did leave, he’d tell the authorities about the guys taking a little seven year old girl to some secluded car instead of where appropriate medical help was supposed to be, and then we’d all be screwed. You, me and Luke.” He gestured to his partner. “And not just by the authorities.”

Yes, all of these were crucially valid points and he really didn’t want anyone dead at the moment, but it still did not clear up the fact that they had a famous figure skater and probably one of Mikhail’s next victims sitting lightly bound up in the next room, probably waiting for his demise or some shit. Lev isn’t very sure as he’s not really been in that sort of position before. No one wanted to kidnap invaluable trash from the streets and he had never fought battles he knew he couldn’t win.

This though, he wasn’t really sure what he was going to do in this situation except to face the reality of the circumstance and get it over with. So, with all the vigor of a man who had no time to deal with unnecessary shit at 23:41pm, he walked through the door of his sub office, his two accomplices behind him, and was no sooner met with the surprised face of a tired Yuuri Katsuki, hands bound, caked in vomit and sweat with small traces of soot from the fire on his clothes and face.

He was sitting on the floor, and had the most comedic expression of a confused puppy on his face as he came into view. Lev was a bit startled as that contorted right into fear. “It’s… it’s you… You’re the kidnapper?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ……………………………………………………………………………………….
> 
> A/N:  
> Well, now we know what happened with Yuuri and who Lev is in this story. Kudos to Yuzu_ir for guessing it right in the comments! Let me know what you think of his backstory if you read it (Had to fit it into a summary.) And also lots of love to my fellow readers: SarcasticAmigo, Parni1380, Hanairoh and Yuzu_ir who commented on the last chapter! And same thing goes to all who left kudos. You light up my world!  
> And if you didn’t know, you’re allowed to ask questions if you have any, as long as they aren’t questions that may spoil the story! And I’ll reply to you as soon as I can! (Although not too soon because I _do_ have exams coming up and I’m mega stressed as it is) Thanks again though!!! And stay tuned for chapter ten!


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